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HISTORY  OF    ENGLAND 


FOR  THE  USE  OF  SCHOOLS  AND  ACADEMIES 


BY 


J.  N.  LARNED 


Formerly  Superintendent  of  the  Btiffalo  Public  Library 
Editor  and  Compiler  of  "  History  for  Ready 
Reference  and  Topical  Reading  " 


WITH   TOPICAL  ANALYSES,  RESEARCH    QUESTIONS 
AND  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTES 


By  homer  p.  LEWIS 

Principal  of  the  English  High  School 
Worcester,  Mass. 


hclRiUergidcPreg^l 


BOSTON,  NEW  YORK,  AND  CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 

(€bc  Rilicrsibt  |!»rc88,  Cambridge 


y^ 


COPYRIGHT,    1900,    BY    HOUGHTON,    MIFFLIN   &   CO. 
ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 


*  »  •       > 
-    »    » 


4      -t 


'•  •  *   * 


PREFACE. 

I  SHOULD  like  to  be  able  to  describe  this  book  on  its 
title-page  more  correctly  than  by  calling  it  a  "  History  of 
England  ;  "  for  it  is  much  less  than  that,  and  it  is  also 
much  more.  It  is  necessarily  a  sketch,  rather  than  a  his 
tory,  in  the  right  sense  of  that  term  ;  and  the  people 
whose  national  life  and  growth  are  its  subject  ceased  long 
ago  to  be  those,  alone,  of  that  part  of  the  island  of  Great 
Britain  which  bears  the  name  of  England  on  the  map. 
A  better  description  of  the  book  would  be  given  by  say- 
ing that  it  is  an  outline  of  the  principal  circumstances 
and  events  in  the  history  of  the  English  people  and  the 
British  nation,  especially  of  those  most  connected  with 
the  growth  of  the  English  constitution  of  government, 
with  its  extension  to  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland,  and  with  its  expansion  in  sovereignty 
over  a  vast  empire  of  British  colonies  and  dependencies 
in  every  quarter  of  the  globe.  That  is  more  explanation, 
however,  than  can  be  put  into  a  title,  and  there  seems  to 
be  no  escape  from  the  common  usage  which  gives  a  larger 
meaning  to  "  England  "  and  less  to  "  History  "  than  they 
ought  to  have. 

In  so  small  a  book  as  this  must  be  for  school  use,  even 
the  outlining  of  events  which  run  through  nearly  two 
thousand  years  has  to  be  meagrely  done,  with  a  stiff 
restraint  kept  always  on  the  writer's  hand.      He   can 

284742 


IV  PREFACE. 

hardly  more  than  name  the  chief  actors  of  the  history, 
—  hardly  more  than  mention  some  few  things  that  they 
did.  He  can  make  no  attempt  to  bring  them  before  the 
minds  of  his  readers  like  living  persons,  moving  in  real 
scenes.  His  brief  and  crowded  narrative  will  only  be 
interesting  so  far  as  one  who  reads  it  is  made  to  feel 
that  the  things  most  essential  are  being  told,  with  simple 
clearness,  in  such  an  order  and  so  connectedly  as  to  show 
streams  of  influence  and  cause  flowing  through  them,  and 
that  it  is  leading  him  easily  along  the  main  lines  of  devel- 
opment that  run  through  English  history  from  its  begin- 
ning to  its  end.  Those  are  the  qualities  that  I  have  tried 
to  give  to  this  book,  aiming  to  make  it  show  as  much  of 
the  outcoming  of  each  succeeding  state  of  things  from 
that  which  went  before  it,  and  as  much  of  the  larger 
meanings  of  English  history,  as  can  appear  in  so  brief  an 
account. 

Those  meanings  are  qilite  as  interesting  and  important 
to  us,  of  the  New  World,  as  they  are  to  the  people  of  the 
British  Isles.  Down,  at  least,  to  the  time  when  our 
nation  branched  from  the  old  English  trunk,  their  his- 
tory is  equally  ours.  It  is  true  that  we  have  become  a 
remarkably  composite  people,  and  that  the  forefathers 
of  the  generation  now  living  in  the  United  States  came 
from  many  different  lands ;  but  more  came  from  the 
British  islands  than  from  all  other  countries,  and  they 
brought  us  more  than  we  have  taken  from  all  other 
sources  combined.  Along  with  the  language  that  we 
speak,  and  the  great  old  literature  that  delights  us  most, 
our  English  forefathers  brought  to  us  the  main  principles 


PREFACE. 


of  our  government  and  our  law,  and  the  better  part  of 
the  ideas,  the  modes  of  feeling,  and  the  habits  of  mind 
by  which  our  national  character  has  been  formed.    They 
brought  to  us  our  system  of  elected  representatives,  for 
the  making  of  laws  and  the  direction  of  public  affairs  ; 
our  system  of  township  and  county  local  government  ; 
the  whole  system   of  our  courts,   of  our  juries,   of  the 
writs  which  protect  us  from  arbitrary  imprisonment  ;  and 
they  brought  the  precious  "  common  law  "  of  England, 
under  which  half  of  our   personal   rights  are  enjoyed. 
Above  all,  they  brought  to  America,  at  the  beginning, 
an  understanding  of  political  freedom  and  a  preparation 
for  self-government  that  enabled  them  to  work  wisely  in 
founding  the  institutions  of  the  Republic.     It  is  literally 
a  fact  that  our  nation  is  the  offspring  of  England  ;  and, 
while  it  has  fed  its  own  immense  growth  in  an  independ- 
ent way,  yet  its  form,  its  distinguishing  features,  and  its 
very  spirit,  are  derived  from  the  parent  that  gave  it  birth. 
Naturally  it  follows  that,  excepting  their  own,  there  is 
no  part  of  human  history  so  important  and  interesting 
to    Americans    as    the   history  of   the  English   people. 
Indeed,    their  understanding  of   the   meaning   of    their 
own  history  depends   on   their   acquaintance  with  what 
went  before   it   in  the  land  which  trained  the  founders 
of  their  national  life.     To  trace  from  seed  and  root  in 
England  the  many  traits  and  habits,  modes  and  forms, 
principles  and  sentiments,  that  have  had  a  transplanted 
growth  in  the  New  World,  is  the  necessary  beginning  of 
a  profitable  study  of  the  history  of  the  United  States. 


VI  PREFACE. 

Some  features  of  the  book,  accessory  to  its  narrative, 
seem  to  call  for  a  few  explanatory  words  :  — 

(i.)  The  Surveys  of  General  History,  of  which  one 
will  be  found  for  each  century  after  the  Twelfth,  be- 
sides a  preceding  one  which  covers  the  first  seven  cen- 
turies after  the  fall  of  Rome.  I  have  introduced  these 
because  the  story  of  England  cannot  be  told  without 
allusions,  on  almost  every  page,  to  affairs  in  other  coun- 
tries, which  need  some  kind  of  explanation  for  those  who 
have  no  broad  knowledge  of  general  history  already  in 
their  minds.  Instead  of  thrusting  such  explanations, 
disconnectedly,  here  and  there,  into  the  English  narra- 
tive, I  have  thought  it  better  to  supply  them  at  inter- 
vals, by  these  glancing  surveys  of  events  and  conditions 
in  the  world  at  large,  which  faintly  give  to  English  his- 
tory the  background  that  it  needs.  They  are  entirely  de- 
tached from  the  text  of  the  English  narrative,  being 
printed  in  a  different  type,  and  arranged  in  a  different 
form.  It  is  the  intention  that  teachers  shall  make  such 
use  of  them  as  they  find  best.  Some  may  wish  to  have 
them  studied  by  the  pupil ;  others  may  have  them  merely 
read  ;  still  others  may  refer  to  them,  only,  as  occasion  sug- 
gests. Their  relation  to  the  narrative  text  is  such  that 
they  can  be  used  much  or  little,  as  the  teacher  desires. 

(2.)  The  Topics,  References,  and  Research  Questions 
which  accompany  each  chapter.  These  have  been  pre- 
pared for  the  book  by  Mr.  Homer  P.  Lewis,  Principal 
of  the  English  High  School  at  Worcester,  Massachu- 
setts, whose  experience  and  success  in  teaching  English 
history  give  high   value  to  his  topical   analyses   of  the 


PREFACE.  vii 

text  and  his  suggestions  for  thought  and  reading  beyond 
it.  The  *' Topics"  are  an  accurate  synopsis  of  the  text 
and  serve  a  double  purpose,  enabling  the  pupil  to  ex- 
amine himself,  and  presenting  to  him,  at  the  same  time, 
a  grouped  view  of  each  subject.  The  "  References  "  are 
to  the  books  which  Mr.  Lewis  finds  best  for  school  use, 
and  they  are  specific,  —  closely  connected  with  the  text. 
For  nearly  every  section  in  the  book  there  is  at  least  one 
reference,  and  important  sections  have  a  dozen  or  more. 
The  arrangement  of  the  references  is  planned  to  give 
great  assistance  to  teachers  in  assigning  work  to  their 
pupils.  The  "  Research  Questions  "  have  a  double  aim. 
In  some  cases  they  enlarge  the  text ;  in  others  they  deal 
with  matter  suggested  by  the  text.  They  often  bring 
forward  a  lesson  from  the  text  to  kindred  problems,  situ- 
ations or  institutions  of  the  present  day. 

(3.)  The  Index,  in  which  teachers  will  find  more  than 
indexes  commonly  contain.  It  is  made  to  be  a  working 
part  of  the  book,  {a)  It  is  analytical  of  the  topics  of 
the  book,  tracing  through  it  the  greater  subjects  of  Eng- 
lish history  (such  as  Parliament,  the  Monarchy,  Minis- 
terial Government,  the  Church,  etc.),  and  outlining  the 
development  of  them,  {b)  It  is  a  geographical  guide, 
locating  places  mentioned  in  the  text  by  the  page  of  the 
map  on  which  they  are  found,  and  by  an  approximate 
indication  of  latitude  and  longitude  for  each.  (^.)  It  is 
a  pronouncing  vocabulary. 

(4.)  The  Maps.  These  have  been  specially  prepared 
for  the  book,  with  carefulness  to  have  them  show  all 
places  mentioned  in  the  narrative  of  English  history,  but 


viii  PREFACE. 

to  be  simplified  as  much  as  possible  otherwise,  contain- 
ing no  unnecessary  details. 

(5.)  The  Illustrations,  which  offer  no  imagined  scenes, 
but  are  wholly  representative  of  historical  realities  — 
portraits  of  important  personages,  and  pictures,  mostly 
photographic,  of  things  and  places  which  are  related  in 
some  interesting  way  to  what  is  recounted  in  the  text. 
They  have  been  chosen  with  care,  and  many  of  them 
will  be  found  to  have  a  teaching  value  of  their  own,  in 
what  they  show  of  the  conditions  of  life,  the  state  of 
knowledge,  or  the  art  and  workmanship,  of  past  times. 

Buffalo,  June,  1900. 


CONTENTS. 


BRITAIN    AND    EARLY    ENGLAND,    TO    1066. 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

L   Britain  until  the  English  Conquest      ....  i 

II.   The  English  Conquest  and  Settlement    ...  15 

III.   The  Intrusion  of  the  Danes.     787-1066      •     •    •  37 

Survey      of      General      History  —  Sixth     to 

Twelfth  Centuries 52 


THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION,    1066-1199. 

1\'.    The  Norman  Conquest  and    Its  First  Effects. 

William  I.     1066-1087 59 

V.   The  Fusing  of  the  New  Nation.     Norman  Kings : 

William  II.,  Henry  I.,  Stephen.  1087-1154  ...  82 
VI.   The    Upbuilding   of    English    Law.     Angevin,  or 

Early   Plantagenet,   Kings:    Henry    II.,   Richard    I. 

1 1 54-1 199 109 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM,    1 199-1450. 

Survey  of  General  History  —  The  Thirteenth 

Century 131 

VII.  The  Rise  of  the  English  Commons.  Angevin 
and  Later  Plantagenet  Kings  :  John,  Henry  III., 
Edward  I.     1 199-1307 135 

Survey    of     General     History  —   The     Four- 
teenth Century 161 

VIII.  Vainglory  in  Foreign  War.  The  Last  Planta- 
genet Kings  :  Edward  II.,  Eldward  III..  Richard  II. 
1307-1399      .     " 165 


CONTENTS. 

IX.   Medieval  Life  in  England 190 

Survey  of  General  History  —  The  Fifteenth 

Century 202 

X.    Parliamentary  Kings.    Lancastrian  Kings  :  Henry 

IV.,  Henry  V.,  Henry  VI.     1399-1450 207 


RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION,    1450-1603. 

XL   Factious    King-Making  —  Civil  War  —  Politi- 
cal Decline.     Lancastrian  and  Yorkist  Kino;s: 
Henry  VL,  Edward  IV.,  Richard   III.     1450-1485  228 
Survey  OF  General  History  —  The  Sixteenth 

Century • 248 

XII.   Arbitrary  Monarchy  —  The  Founding  of  the 
National  Church.     Tudor  Kings:  Henry  VII., 

Henry  VIII.     1485-1547 256 

XII  I.   Protestant  Reformation  and  Catholic  Reac- 
tion.     Tudor    Sovereigns:    Edward   VL,    Mary, 

1547-1558 287 

XIV.   The  Elizabethan  Age.     The  Last  of  the  Tudors  : 

Queen  Elizabeth.     1 558-1603 305 


THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION,    1603-1688. 

Survey    of    General    History  —  The    Seven- 
teenth Century 342 

XV.   Waning   Reverence   for    Royalty.      The  First 
Stuart    King :   James    I.    of   England   and  VI.    of 

Scotland.     1 603-1 625 349 

XVI.   The  Quarrel  between  King  and  People.    The 

Second  Stuart   King:  Charles  I.     1625-1642    .     .  372 
XVII.   The  Overthrow  of  the  Monarchy.     Charles  I. 

1642-1649 403 

XVIII.   Commonwealth  and  Protectorate.    The  Rump 

Parliament  and  Oliver  Cromwell.     1 649-1 660     .     .  424 
XIX.    Restoration   and    Revolution.      Stuart   Kings: 

Charles  II.,  James  II.     1660-1688 448 


CONTENTS.  xi 

THE    PERIOD    OF    ARISTOCRATIC    GOVERNMENT. 

1 688- 1 820. 

Survey    of    General    History  —  The    Eigh- 
teenth Century 477 

XX.   The   Settlement  of   a   Constitutional   Mon- 
archy.    William  and  Mary,  Anne.     1688-1714    .  484 
XXI.   The    Establishing    of    Ministerial    Govern- 
ment.    Hanoverian  Kings:  George  I.,  George  II. 

1714-1742 509 

XXII.   Expansion  of  Empire.     George  II.     1743-1760  .  520 

XXIII.  Backward  Steps  and  Loss  of  Empire.    George 

III.     1760-1788 531 

XXIV.  Conflict     with     the     French     Revolution. 

George  III.     1 789-1 800 553 

Survey     of    General     History  —  The    Nine- 
teenth Century 561 

XXV.   Conflict  with    Napoleon.     George  III.     1800- 

1820 571 


THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA,    1820-1899. 

XXVI.   The  Ending  of  the   Rule  of  the  Landlords. 

George  IV.,  William  IV.,  Victoria.     1820-1846     .  587 
XXVII.   Growth  of  Democracy.     Queen  Victoria.     1846- 

1899 ^7 


APPENDIX. 

The  British  Empire  in  1899 ^  .    .    .  634 

A  Working  Library 636 

An  Additional  List  of  Books 637 

Illustrative  Fiction  in  Poetry  and  Prose      .    .    ^.^_.  642 

Index 649 


ILLUSTRATIONS,    MAPS,    AND    GENEALOGIES. 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

I'AGE 

Westminster  Abbey.     From  a  photograph.      F?-ontispiece. 

Ancient  Block  of  Tin  found  at  Trereife,  Cornwall, 
AND  preserved  IN  THE  MusEUM  AT  Penzance.  From 
the  ArchcEological  Journal^  xxiii.  285 4 

Stonehenge.     From  a  photograph 7 

Remains  of  a  Roman  Bath,  at  Bath.  From  Windle's 
Life  of  Early  Britain,  p.  149 9 

Remnant  of  Roman  Military  Road  called  Watling 
Street.  From  a  photograph  made  in  Delamere  Forest, 
ten  miles  from  Chester.  The  ruts  seen  are  worn  in  the  stone 
foundation 10 

Ancient  Jutish  Boat  found  buried  in  a  Peat  Bog  in 
Nydam,  South  Jutland.  From  Engelhardt's  Dounark 
in  the  Early  Iron  Age,  pi.  i 17 

Early  English  Spears  and  Knives  found  in  Kentish 
Barrows.  From  Jewitt's  HalfHonrs  among  Some  Eng- 
lish Antiquities,  p.  108 20 

A  Thane's  House.  From  Harl.  MS.  603,  as  shown  in  Cutts's 
Parish  Priests 25 

Saxon  Cross  at  Ruthwell,  about  680  a.  d.  From  Cutts's 
Parish  Priests,  p.  25 27 

Remains  of  an  Ancient  Celtic  Church  on  the  Island 
of  Eilean-na-Naoimh,  near  Zona.  From  Dowden's 
Celtic  Church  in  Scotland,  P-  113 29 

Iron  Swords  of  the  Vikings,  found  in  Schleswig. 
From  the  Archceological fonrnal,    xxiii.  182 39 

Alfred  the  (tREAT.  From  an  engraving  by  Vertue  in  An- 
nales  rerum  gesta?'icm  Alfredi  Magni,  by  Asserius  Mene- 
vensis  (Wise's  ed..  Oxford,  1722) 41 

Church  of  St.  Lawrence,  at  Bradford-on-Avon,  Wilt- 
shire.    From  Cutts's  Parish  Priests 44 


XIV     ILLUSTRATIONS,   MAPS,   AND    GENEALOGIES. 

The  Westminster  Abbey  of  Edward  the  Confessor, 
AS  represented  on  the  Bayeux  Tapestry.  f>om 
Jules  Comte's  La  Tapisserie  de  Bayeux 47 

William  the  Conqueror  and  Attendants  :  Bayeux 
Tapestry.  From  Jules  Comte's  La  Tapisserie  de  Bayeux\ 
pi.  xxvi.  and  xxvii 60 

Norman  Vessel  of  the  Eleventh  Century  :  restored 
FROM  THE  Bayeux  Tapestry.  From  Lacroix's  Military 
and  Religious  Life  in  the  Middle  Ages,  p.  76 61 

The  Battle  of  Senlac,  as  partly  represented  on 
THE  Bayeux  Tapestry.  From  Jules  Comte's  Tapisserie 
de  Bayeux,  pi.  Ixvi 63 

The  Tower  of  London  in  1597.  (The  earliest  drawing.) 
From  John  Bayley's  Tower  of  I^ondon,  y>'  i 65 

Plan  of  the  Manor  of  Burton  Agnes,  as  it  appeared 
IN  1809.  From  Canon  Isaac  Taylor's  "Domesday  Survi- 
vals "  in  Z>(?//2^j^(rzy  6"///^/>j-,  i.  55 71 

Facsimiles  of  Entries  in  Domesday  Book.  Yrom  Gar- 
diner's Studenfs  History  of  England,  p.  112.  The  Domes- 
day Book  in  two  volumes  of  vellum  manuscript,  one  a  large 
folio,  the  other  a  quarto,  is  preserved  in  the  Public  Record 
Office,  London 73 

A  King's  Deathbed  :  Bishops  and  Abbots  attending. 
From    a    twelfth    century    MS.    as    represented    in   J.    R. 

V\-Anc\\€'s  Encyclopcsdia  of  Cost7ime,\.  i^2> ^3 

Keep  of  Rochester  Castle.    Called  by  Professor  Freeman 

"the  noblest  example  of  the  Norman  military  architecture 

of  the  next  generation  after  William  I."    From  a  photograph     85 

Interior  of  Westminster  Hall.     From  a  photograph      .     ^y 

Henry  I.     From  YiolWs's  Mojitwtental  Effigies 88 

Exchequer  Table,  as  depicted  in  the  "  Red  Book  of 
THE  Exchequer  Court  of  Ireland,"  Fifteenth  Cen- 
tury.    From  William  Longman's  Edward  the  Third     .     .     91 

Nave  of  St.  Alban's  Abbey  Church.  This  was  built  be- 
tween 1077  and  1093,  and  is  a  good  example  of  the  Norman 
style  of  architecture.     From  a  photograph 94 

A  Cistercian  Monk.  From  Planche's  Encyclopcedia  of 
Costume,  ii.  64 95 

Durham  Cathedral.  (Built  mostly  in  the  reign  of  Henry  I.) 
From  a  photograph 96 

Stephen  of  Blois.     After  an  engraving  by  G.  Vertue      .     .98 


ILLUSTRATIONS,    MAPS,  AND    GENEALOGIES.       xv 


99 


I  12 


"The  Standard"  of  the  Battle  of  1138.      From    MS 
Arundel  150  (British   Museum),  an  early  thirteenth  century 
copy  of  part  of  the  Chronicle  of  Roger  of  Hoveden     .     . 

Thomas  Becket  and  his  Secretary.     From  an  old  MS 
at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge 

Transept  of  Canterbury  Cathedral,  the  Scene  of 
Becket's  Murder.     From  a  photograph 113 

Effigies  of  Henry  II.  and  his  Queen,  Eleanor,  in  the 
Abbey  Church  of  Fontevrault.  From  Blanche's  En- 
cyclopcpdia  of  Costiane,  i.  273 116 

A  MEDiiEVAL  Author  at  Work.  From  an  old  MS.,  as 
shown  in  Cutts's  Scenes  and  Characters  of  the  Middle  Ages ^ 
p.  83 121 

Hood  of  Chain  Mail,  and  Cylindrical  Helmet  with 
close  Vizor,  of  the  Twelfth  Century.  From  the 
Archceological  foiirnal^  xxii.  8 122 

Effigy  of  Richard  I.  in  the  Abbey  Church  of  Fonte- 
vrault.    Yxovci  Sio\h2x6.^\!,  Moujiniental  Effigies     .     .     .     .123 

Effigy  of  King  John  in  Worcester  Cathedral.  From 
Stothard's  Mo niifnental  Effigies 136 

RuNNYMEDE.     From  a  photograph 139 

Facsimile  Extract  from  One  of  the  Original  Copies 
OF  THE  Magna  Carta  in  the  British  Museum.  The 
passages  are  a  portion  of  the  Preamble,  the  Forty-Sixth 
Clause,  and  the  Attestation.  From  Craik  and  MacFarlane's 
Pictorial  History  of  England^  i- 557 140 

London  early  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  After  a 
drawing  by  Matthew  Paris,  showing  the  Tower,  the  old  St. 
Paul's,  Westminster  Palace,  and  Lambeth.  From  Hubert 
Hall's  Court  Life  under  the  Plantagenets^  P-  27 142 

Henry  III.  as  represented  on  his  Tomb  in  West- 
minster Abbey.  From  Craik  and  MacFarlane's  Pictorial 
History  of  England^  i.  672 143 

Louis  IX.  of  France  (Saint  Louis).  As  painted  on  glass 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Chartres.  From  Boutell's  Anns  atid 
Armoicr^  p.  112 145 

Edward  I.  After  the  engraving  by  George  Vertue  of  the 
statue  at  Carnarvon  Castle.  From  Clifford's  Life  and 
Reign  of  Edward  the  Eirst 147 

The  Great  Seal  of  Edward  I.  From  Gardiner's  StJt- 
denfs  History  of  England^  p.  209 149 


xvi     ILLUSTRATIONS,  MAPS,  AND   GENEALOGIES. 

William  Wallace.  After  an  engraving  by  S.  Alphonse  of 
the  statue  by  W.  G.  Stevenson.  From  the  Art  Journal, 
xxxvii.  335 153 

The  Steelyard,  London.  After  an  engraving  by  Hollar 
in  1641.  From  Herbert's  Twelve  Great  Livery  Co7npa7iies 
of  London,  i.  11 154 

Merton  College,  Oxford,  founded  in  1264  by  Bishop  Mer- 
ton,  of  Rochester.     From  Lang's  Oxford,  p.  185     .     .     .     .155 

Edward  III.  After  a  wall-painting,  formerly  in  St.  Stephen's 
Chapel,  Westminster.    From  Longman's  Edward  II L,  vol.  i.   168 

Crossbowman  with  his  Shield.  From  Longman's  Ed- 
ward III,  i.  257 169 

Archer  with  his  Sheaf  of  Arrows.  From  Longman's 
Edward  III.,  i.  264 170 

John  of  Gaunt.  Painted  by  L.  Cornelisz.  From  South 
Kensington  N^ational  Portraits,  vo\.\ 176 

John  Wiclif.  From  South  Kensingto?i  National  Portraits^ 
vol.  vi.     Painter  unknown 177 

Tomb  and  Part  of  the  Armor  of  the  Black  Prince 
IN  Canterbury  Cathedral.  From  Stanley's  Historical 
Memorials  of  Canterbury,  p.  1 20 1 79 

John  Ball,  the  Priest,  preaching  from  Horseback, 
after  a  MS.  of  Froissart's  "  Chronicle."  From  Cutts's  Par- 
ish Priests,  p.  171     ... 180 

Richard  II.  From  South  Kensington  Ahitiotial  Portraits, 
vol.  i.     Painter  unknown 182 

Geoffrey  Chaucer.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 
Painter  unknown 184 

Manor-House  at  Mellichope,  Shropshire,  built  in  the 
latter  half  of  the  twelfth  century.  From  Thomas  Wright's 
Homes  of  Other  Days,  p.  149 192 

Henry  IV.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Painter 
unknown 208 

Henry  V.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Painter 
unknown 212 

John,  Duke  of  Bedford.  From  Reresby's  Travels  and 
Me7noirs,  p.  2 217 

Statue  of  Joan  of  Arc,  by  Fremiet,  Place  des  Pyramides, 
Paris.  From  Louis  Gonse's  La  Sculpture  Franqaise 
deptiis  le  XIVi^"^e  sihle 219 

Margaret  of  Anjou.  After  an  old  MS.  at  Jesus  College, 
Oxford.     ArcJiceological  foui'nal,  viii.  98    . 220 


ILLUSTRATIONS,   MAPS,  AND   GENEALOGIES,  xvii 

Humphrey,  Duke  of  Gloucester.  From  Walpole's  7?6y/«/ 
and  iVoble  Authors,  vo\.  \ 222 

Henry  VI.  P>om  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Painter 
unknown «  231 

Edward  IV.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Painter 
unknown 235 

Warw^ick,  the  King-maker.  After  the  Rous  Roll.  From 
C.  W.  Oman's  Wa7"wick 236 

Armor  of  Charles  the  Bold,  Duke  of  Burgundy. 
From  BouteWs  Arms  and  A rmotir,  p.  149 237 

The  murdered  Prince,  called  Edward  V.  After  an 
engraving  by  W.  Ridley.  From  a  painting  in  Lambeth  Pal- 
ace      240 

Richard  III.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Painter 
unknown 241 

Oldest  known  Representation  of  a  Printing  Press. 
From  Blade's  William  Caxton,  pi.  vii.  p.  126 243 

Facsimile  Specimen  of  Caxton's  Printing.  From  Blade's 
Williain  Caxto?i,  pi.  xiii.  p.  336 244 

Henry  VII.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Painted, 
1505,  by  an  unknown  Flemish  artist 256 

Katharine  of  Aragon.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gal- 
lery.    Painter  unknown 259 

Henry  VIII.  After  an  engraving  by  Houbraken  (from  an 
original  painting  by  Holbein),  in  the  Gardiner  Greene  Hub- 
bard Collection,  Library  of  Congress 263 

Thomas  Wolsey.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery. 
Painter  unknown 264 

English  Warship  which  conveyed  Henry  VIII.  to 
France.  From  Lacroix's  Military  atid  Religious  Life  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  p.  80 266 

Anne  Boleyn.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Painter 
unknown 268 

Sir  Thomas  More.  After  the  painting  by  Holbein.  From 
Lodge's  Portraits,  vol.  i 272 

Thomas  Cromwell.  Painted  by  Holbein.  Yxoxw  South  Ken- 
sington Natiotial  Portraits,  vol.  i 276 

Edward  VI.  and  Council.  After  a  woodcut  on  the  title- 
page  of  the  Statutes  of  1551.  From  Law's  History  of  Hamp- 
ton Court  Palace 287 

Thomas  Cranmer,  at  the  Age  of  Fifty-Seven.  From  a 
painting  by  G.  Fliccius,  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery      .  289 


xviii  ILLUSTRATIONS,  MAPS,  AND   GENEALOGIES. 

Lady  Jane  Grey.  After  a  drawing  by  Vertue.  From  Wal- 
^oXo's  Royal  and  Noble  Authors,  vo\.  \ 293 

Queen  Mary  Tudor,  or  Mary  I.,  at  the  Age  of  Twenty- 
Eight.  From  a  painting  by  Joannes  Corvus  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery 295 

Philip  II.  From  the  painting  by  Titian  in  the  Prado,  Ma- 
drid     298 

Queen  Elizabeth.  After  an  engraving  by  Holl  from  an  ori- 
ginal portrait  in  Queen  Victoria's  collection,  St.  James's  Pal- 
ace.    Autograph  from  Winsor's  America 307 

Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of  Scots.  From  The  Duke  of  Port- 
land's Collection,  p.  537 310 

Sir  William  Cecil.  After  an  engraving  by  Freeman,  of  the 
original  painting,  probably  by  Marc  Gheeraedts,  in  the  Na- 
tional Portrait  Gallery 319 

Queen  Elizabeth  carried  in  State  to  Hunsdon  House, 
September  18,  1571.  From  the  original  painting  by  Marc 
Gheeraedts,  exhibited  (1866)  at  South  Kensington  Mu- 
seum       323 

Spanish  Armada  attacked  by  the  English  Fleet.  As 
represented  on  the  ancient  tapestry  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
From  Craik  and  MacFarlane's  Pictorial  History  of  Ejig- 
land,  ii.  6^$ 327 

Edmund  Spenser.  From  South  Kensington  National  Por- 
traits, vol.  i.     Painter  unknown 330 

Richard  Hooker.     From  Walton's  ZzV<?^ 330 

William  Shakespeare.  From  "  the  Chandos  Portrait "  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery 331 

Francis  Bacon.    From  Birch's  Heads  of  Illustrious  Persons .     33 1 

James  I.  of  England,  VI.  of  Scotland,  at  the  age  of 
Fifty-Five.  From  the  original  painting  by  Paul  Van 
Somer  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 350 

Anne  of  Denmark,  Wife  of  James  I.  (showing  the  "wheel 
farthingale  "  then  worn).  From  Planche's  Encyclopcedia  of 
Costume,  \.  187 351 

Vault  beneath  the  Old  House  of  Lords.  From  Craik 
2in6.  M?iQ.Y dixldirvt's  Pictorial  History  of  Engla7td,\\\.  2/[  .     .  354 

George  Villiers,  Duke  of  Buckingham.  From  the  ori- 
ginal painting  by  Gerard  Honthorst  in  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery 361 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  From  Stalker's  engraving  published 
in  London  in  1812 362 


ILLUSTRATIONS,  MAPS,  AND  GENEALOGIES,      xix 

The  Manor-House  at  Scroohy,  William  Brewster's 
Residence.     After  a  drawing  by  A.  M.  Raine 366 

Charles  I.     After  the  painting  by  Van  Dyck 372 

John  Pym.  After  an  engraving  by  Houbraken.  From  Birch's 
Heads  of  Illustrious  Persons  of  Great  Britain 375 

William  Laud.  From  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  Cop- 
ied by  Henry  Stone  from  the  original  painting  by  Van  Dyck 
at  Lambeth  Palace 380 

Sir  John  Eliot.  After  Holl's  engraving  of  the  original  paint- 
ing at  Port  Eliot,  Cornwall.  From  Forster's  Sir  John  Eliot^ 
vol.  i.,  frontispiece 382 

Interior  of  St.  Giles's  Church,  Edinburgh.  From  a 
photograph 387 

Thomas  Wentworth,  Earl  of  Strafford.  From  The 
Duke  of  Portland'' s  Collection 390 

John  Hampden.  After  an  engraving  by  Houbraken  in  the 
Gardiner  Greene  Hubbard  Collection,  Library  of  Congress  393 

A  Cavalier.  From  Craik  and  MacFarlane's  Pictorial  His- 
tory of  England^  iii.  609 403 

Oliver  Cromwell.     From  a  miniature  by  Samuel  Cooper  .  405 

Prince  Rupert.  From  an  original  painting  by  Sir  Peter  Lely 
in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 408 

James  Graham,  Marquis  of  Montrose.  From  Birch's 
Heads  of  Illustrious  Per sotis  of  Great  Britain 412 

Trial  of  Charles  L,  as  represented  by  a  contempo- 
rary PRINT.  From  Craik  and  MacFarlane's  Pictorial  His- 
tory of  England,  iii.  337 419 

The  Commonwealth  Flag.  After  an  original  at  Chatham 
Dockyard.     From  Clowes'  Royal  Navy  in  History,  ii.  115  .  426 

Robert  Blake.  Painted  by  A.  Hanneman.  From  South 
Kensington  N^ational  Portraits,  vol.  ii 430 

The  Great  Seal  of  the  Commonwealth  ;  the  Rump 
Parliament  is  represented  on  the  reverse.  From 
Craik  and  MacFarlane's  Pictot'ial  History  of  Etigland,  iii. 

399 432 

Sir  Henry  Vane,  the  Younger.  From  the  original  paint- 
ing by  William  Dobson  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery      .  433 

George  Monk.  From  the  original  painting  by  Sir  Peter  Lely 
in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 439 

The  Puritan  Dress  as  shown  in  George  H.  Bough- 
ton's  painting,  The  Retiu'u  of  the  Mayflower      .     .     .     .441 

John  Milton.     From  the  crayon  drawing  at  Bayfordbury     .  442 


XX       ILLUSTRATIONS,  MAPS,  AND   GENEALOGIES. 

Charles  II.  From  the  original  painting  by  Mrs.  Mary  Beale 
in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 449 

Titus  Oates  in  the  Pillory.  From  Arthur  Griffith's 
Chro7iicles  of  Newgate^  i-  *93 457 

James  II.  From  the  original  painting  by  John  Riley  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery 462 

John  Bunyan.  After  a  drawing  from  Life  by  R.  White  in 
the  British  Museum.    From  Works  of  Joh7i  Bit7iyan^  vol.  iii.  468 

Sir  Isaac  Newton.  From  the  original  painting  by  John  Van- 
derbank  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 468 

John  Locke.  From  the  original  painting  by  T.  Brownover 
in  the  National    Portrait  Gallery 469 

William  III.  From  the  original  painting  by  Jan  Wyck  in 
the  National  Portrait  Gallery 486 

John  Churchill,  Earl  of  Marlborough.  From  the 
original  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  in  the  National 
Portrait  Gallery 493 

Queen  Anne.  From  the  original  painting  by  John  Closter- 
man  in  the   National  Portrait   Gallery 497 

London  Coffee-House  in  the  Reign  of  Anne.  From 
Ashton's  Social  Life  in  the  Reign  of  Anne ^  i.  215    .     .     .     .  499 

English  Flag  and  Scottish  Flag  before  1603,  and 
THE  Union  Flag  ordered  by  James  I.  in  1606.  From 
Clowes'  Royal  Navy  in  History^  ii.  25 501 

Hackney  Coach  in  the  Reign  of  Anne.  From  Ash- 
ton's Social  Life  i?i  the  Reign  of  Anne,  ii.   170 502 

George  I.  From  the  original  painting  by  Sir  Godfrey  Knel- 
ler in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 509 

Costume  of  Gentlemen  in  1721..  From  Planche's  Ency- 
clopcBdia  of  Costume,  ii.  305 512 

Sir  Robert  Walpole.  After  an  original  painting  by  Zincke. 
From  Coxe's  Memoirs  of  Walpole.  London,  1798      .     .     .513 

John  Wesley.  Painted  by  George  Romney.  From  South 
Kensijtgton  Natiottal  Portraits,  Yo\.  V 516 

William  Pitt,  the  Elder.  After  an  original  painting  by 
Richard  Brompton 525 

James  Wolfe.  After  a  print  in  Entick's  History  of  the  Late 
War,  iv.  90.     London,  1764 526 

Robert  Clive.  From  the  original  painting  by  Nathaniel 
Dance  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 527 


ILLUSTRATIONS,  MAPS,  AND  GENEALOGIES,    xxi 

George  III.     After  the  original  painting  by  Thomas  Frye     .  531 

A  Stamp.     Yrovn.  Me?}iorial  History  of  Boston,  vo\.  m.      .     .535 

Lord  North.  From  Murray's  Impartial  History  of  the  Pre- 
sent  War,  London,  1780 539 

William  Pitt,  the  Younger.  After  an  original  drawing  by 
Copley.  From  Lord  Stanhope's  Life  of  Williain  Pitt,  vol.  i., 
frontispiece 544 

Watt's  Steam  Engine  in  i  780.  From  Thurston's  A  His- 
tory of  the  Growth  of  the  Steam  E/igitie 546 

Edmund  Burke.  After  an  original  painting  by  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds.     From  Lodge's  Gallery  of  Portraits      .     .     .     .553 

The  "  Union  Jack  "  (the  national  flag  of  the  United  King- 
dom of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  since  the  Union),  and 
The  Irish  Flag  before  1801.  From  Boutell's  E'?iglish 
Heraldry,  page  262       558 

Lord  Nelson.  From  the  painting,  Nelson  in  the  Cabin  of 
the  F/<:/^; J,  by  Charles  Lucy 573 

Charles  James  Fox.  After  an  original  painting  by  John 
Opie.     From  Lodge's  Gallcfy  of  Portraits 574 

A  Stage  Coach  in  1804.  From  Ashton's  Dawn  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century  in  England,  i.  238 577 

Arthur  Wellesley,  Duke  of  Wellington.  From  an 
original  painting  by  John  Lucas  in  the  National  Gallery, 
Dublin 579 

William  Wordsworth.  From  an  engraving  by  F.  T.  Stu- 
art     582 

Robert  Burns.  From  the  original  painting  by  Alexander 
Nasmyth  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery 582 

Sir  Walter  Scott.  From  the  original  painting  by  C.  R. 
LesHe  (1824)  in  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston.     .     .     .  583 

George  Canning.  After  an  engraving  by  William  Holl, 
from  a  painting  by  T.  Stewardson 588 

Stephenson's  Locomotive,  "  Rocket,"  adopted  for  use  on 
the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  Railvi^ay,  in  1829.  From  B. 
Cooke's  British  Locotnotives,  page  29 591 

Sir  Robert  Peel.  After  a  painting  by  Sir  Thomas  Law- 
rence   595 

Daniel  O'Connell.  From  the  original  miniature  in  the 
National  Portrait  Gallery,  painted  on  ivory  (1836)  by  Ber- 
nard Mulrenin 600 


xxii  ILLUSTRATIONS,  MAPS,  AND   GENEALOGIES. 

The  Victoria  Cross,  instituted  in  1856  as  a  decoration 
awarded  for  notable  deeds  of  valor.  From  Boutell's  Eng- 
lish Heraldry 609 

The  Houses  of  Parliament,  opened  in  1852.  From  a  pho- 
tograph   613 

Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of  Beaconsfield.  From  a  pho- 
tograph   617 

William  Ewart  Gladstone.  From  a  photograph  (1884)  by 
John  Moffat 618 

Queen  Victoria.     From  a  photograph,  1887 623 

Charles  Dickens.  After  a  crayon  drawing  (1868)  by  Sol 
Eytinge,  Jr 626 

Lord  Tennyson.     From  a  photograph 626 

Lord  Macaulay.     From  a  photograph  (1857)  by  Claudet    .  627 


MAPS. 

County  Map  of  Great   Britain  and  Ireland  (double 

page,  colored Front  lUmig  pages. 

Physical  Map  of  Britain 2 

Roman  Britain 8 

The  Older  Home  of    the  English  Race.     From  John- 
ston's School  Atlas 16 

Britain,  a.  d.  597.     From  Gardiner's  School  Atlas  of  English 

History 19 

The  Course  of  the  Viking  Expeditions.   From  Gardiner's 

School  Atlas  of  English  History 38 

Alfred's  Britain,  with   Historical  Detail,  a.  d.  449- 

A.  d.  II 54  (full-page,  colored) Facing    42 

The   Angevin    Empire   of   Henry    II.   (double  page,   col- 
ored)     Facing  no 

France  at  the  Time  of  the  Treaty  of  Bretigny  .    .    .174 
French  Territory  held  by  the  English  when  Joan  of 

Arc  appeared,  a.  d.  1429 218 

England  during  the  Wars  of  the  Roses 233 

Historical  Map  OF  Scotland 313 

The  Netherlands:  showing   Dutch  and  Spanish  Pos- 
sessions      318 

Ireland,  a.  d.  1600-A.  d.  1900  (full-page,  colored)      .   Facing  358 


ILLUSTRATIONS,  MAPS,  AND  GENEALOGIES,  xxiii 

England  at  the  Beginning  of  the  Civil  War,  with 
Historical  Detail  from  a.  d.  1600  to  a.  d.  1900  (full- 
page,  colored) Faciiig  404 

India,  a.  d.  1785  to  a.  d.  1900  (full-page,  colored)   .   Facing  526 
Europe   in  a.  d.  1825,  with    Historical   Detail  from 

a.  d.  1500  TO  A.  D.  1900  (double  page,  colored)      .   Facittg  574 
British-Boer  War,  South  Africa,  a.  d.  1899-A.  d.  1900  625 
The  British  Empire  in  a.  d.  1900  (double  page,  colored). 
After  Bartholomew's  ^//^j- End  lining  pages. 


GENEALOGIES. 


West  Saxon  Kings  from  Egbert 51 

Norman  Kings  from  the  Conqueror  to  Stephen    .    .108 

Angevin  or  Early  Plantagenet  Kings 130 

Later  Plantagenet  Kings 201 

Royal  Houses  of  Lancaster,  York,  and  Tudor      .    .  227 
Henry  VI I.  from   John   of   Gaunt,  third  son  of  Ed- 
ward III 247 

Tudor  Family  from  Henry  VII 304 

Stuart  Sovereigns  of  Scotland  from  Robert  Bruce 

TO  Mary  Queen  of  Scots 341 

Stuart  Sovereigns  of  Scotland  and  England  from 

Mary  Queen  of  Scots 476 

Hanoverian  Sovereigns  from  James  I.  of  England    .  606 


>   »   J 


HISTORY    OF    ENGLAND. 


BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND. 

To   1066. 


CHAPTER    I. 

BRITAIN    UNTIL    THE    ENGLISH    CONQUEST. 

1.  The  Island  of  Great  Britain.  The  character  and 
career  of  the  EngUsh  people  have  been  affected  so 
remarkably  by  the  geographical  position  of  their  coun- 
try that  some  facts  concerning  it  are  really  the  most 
important  in  their  history.  Because  the  island  of  Great 
Britain  lies  far  in  the  north,  and  yet  is  warmed  by  the 
embracing  waters  of  the  Gulf  Stream,  it  has  a  climate 
finely  tempered,  a  soil  fruitfully  watered,  and  is  singularly 
suited  for  the  breeding  of  a  hearty  race.  It  is  favored, 
too,  by  other  natural  gifts,  of  mines,  of  fisheries,  of  good 
harbors,  sheltered  inlets,  and  navigable  streams,  for  the 
schooling  of  its  people  in  industries  at  home  and  in 
commerce  with  the  outer  world.  But  the  people  owe 
much  less  to  these  advantages  of  their  island  than  they 
do  to  its  separation  from  the  continent  of  Europe  by  a 
narrow  channel  of  the  sea. 

The  little  strait  that  divides  Great  Britain  from  France 
is  just  wide  enough  and  stormy  enough  to  make  under- 
takings of  war  from  one  shore  against  the  other  very 


2  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND. 

difficult,  while  peaceful  intercourse  is  scarcely  hindered 
in  the  least.  This  fortunate  geographical  position  has 
enabled  the  English  to  go  their  own  way  for  eight  cen- 
Effects  of  turies  ;  to  live  their  own  life,  develop  their  own 
insularity,  institutions,  work  out  their  own  career,  with 
less  interference  and  more  independence  than  any  other 


,'*j     .— , 


ciS;^ 


'^-^ 


I  ..^ 

f  '^ 

> 

c-    J — 

e3.l< 


PHYSICAL    MAP    OF    BRITAIN. 


European  people.  They  have  wasted  less  in  neighbor- 
hood wars,  have  been  distracted  less  by  neighborhood 
rivalries,  and,  therefore,  have  turned  more  of  the  energies 
of  their  ambition  into  distant  fields,  of  colonization  and 


UNTIL  THE  ENGLISH   CONQUEST.  3 

commerce,  building   up  a  great   colonial   empire,  which 
stretches  to  all  regions  of  the  globe. 

At  the  same  time,  and  for  the  same  reason,  their  atten- 
tion as  a  people  has  been  centred  more  on  their  own  polit- 
ical  affairs,  —  on   the    doings   of  their   government,   on 
the  conduct  of  their  courts  of  law,  on  the  management  of 
public  business  in  their  parishes  and  towns.     They  have 
consequently  kept  possession,  throughout  their  history, 
of  more  political  rights  and  powers  as  citizens,  and  have 
been  better  trained  in  the  practical  use  of  them,  pouticai 
than   other  peoples  of  the  old  world.     All   of  <^raimng. 
this  goes  far  towards  accounting  for  the  peculiar  insti- 
tutions of  free  government  that  have  grown  up  in  Eng- 
land, and  have  come  as  an  inheritance  to  us  in  America. 
The  history  which  follows  should  be  studied  with  this, 
geographical  fact  kept  clearly  in  mind. 

2.  The  Prehistoric  Inhabitants  of  Britain.  At  a 
time  so  long  ago  that  no  date  for  it  can  be  fixed,  there 
were  races  of  men  in  the  island  of  Britain,  and  in  other 
parts  of  Europe,  about  whom  very  little  can  be  learned, 
beyond  the  fact  that  they  lived  in  a  savage  state,  hunting 
animals  of  many  species  that  are  found  no  longer  in  that 
part  of  the  world.  Some  marks  of  their  fires,  in  caves 
and  on  sheltering  rocks ;  some  remains  of  their  rude  im- 
plements and  weapons  of  stone  and  bone  ;  some  surpris- 
ingly well-drawn  figures  of  animals,  etched  with  a  sharp 
point  on  bits  of  ivory  and  horn  ;  a  few  skulls  and  frag- 
ments of  human  skeletons,  brought  occasionally  to  light 
from  long  burial  in  the  earth,  —  these  are  the  scanty 
relics  that  hint  at  the  story  of  the  prehistoric  folk. 
Such  hints,  and  the  guesses  founded  on  them,  are  inter- 
esting, but  they  bear  with  no  importance  on  the  history 
that  leads  from  our  own  early  ancestors  down  to  our- 
selves.   In  a  work  so  brief  as  this  we  must  pass  them  by. 


4  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.  [4TH  Cent.  B.C. 

3.  Celtic  Britain.  At  some  unknown  time,  the  pre- 
historic inhabitants  of  western  Europe  were  displaced  to 
a  great  extent  by  new-comers  of  two  races,  —  one,  known 
as  the  Teutonic  or  Germanic,  taking  possession  of  regions 
north  of  the  Rhine ;  the  other,  called  Celtic  (sometimes 
spelled  and  pronounced  Keltic),  filling  Britain,  Ireland, 
Belgium,  France,  Switzerland,  northern  Italy,  and  northern 
Spain  with  the  ruling  peoples  that  were  found  in  those 


Gaul. 


ANCIENT    BLOCK    OF   TIN    FOUND   AT   TREREIFE,   CORNWALL. 

countries  when  their  recorded  history  begins.  Where  the 
Romans  knew  them  first,  in  northern  Italy, 
Switzerland,  and  the  region  of  modern  France, 

these  Celtic  people  were  given  the  name  of  Galli,  and 

their  country  was  called  Gallia,  or  Gaul. 

The    Celtic   tribes  which  passed  over  to   the   British 

islands  are  supposed  to  have  belonged  to  two  branches 

of  that  race,  which  migrated  at  different  times.  One  of 
these,  distino-uished  as  the  Goidel  or  Gael,  has 

The  Gael        ,    .      -1        1  1  1     •        1  •         1 

and  the  Icit  its  descendants  and  its  language  in  the 
Scottish  Highlands  and  islands,  in  Ireland,  and 
in  the  Isle  of  Man  ;  the  other,  called  Brythons,  gave  the 
name  Britain  to  the  larger  island,  and  the  descendants 
of  that  branch  are  the  Welsh,  or  Kymry  (also  spelled 
Cymry),  as  they  are  named  in  their  own  tongue. 

Of  Britain  after  the  Celts  were  settled  in  it  the  Greeks 


55  B.C.]        UNTIL  THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST.  5 

got  some  knowledge  as  early  as  the  fourth  century  before 
Christ.  At  least  one  Greek  explorer,  Pytheas  by  name, 
made  a  voyage  to  its  coasts  in  the  time  of  Alexander  the 
Great.  Formerly  it  was  thought  that  the  Phoenicians 
and  Carthaginians  had  traded  with  the  islands  before 
that  time,  obtaining  tin  from  the  mines  in  Cornwall,  but 
there  is  no  good  evidence  of  the  fact.  Doubtless  tin  was 
obtained  from  Britain  very  early  by  the  trading  nations  of 
the  Mediterranean,  but  it  reached  them  through  Early  tin 
the  hands  of  the  Gauls  more  probably  than  by  *'^*^®- 
their  own  ships.  That  metal  was  nearly  the  most  impor- 
tant article  of  trade  in  ancient  times,  because  of  its  use 
in  hardening  copper,  to  produce  the  bronze  or  brass 
which  then  took  the  place  of  iron  and  steel. 

Whatever  earlier  knowledge  of  Britain  the  Romans 
may  have  had,  their  real  acquaintance  with  it  began  in 
the  year  55  b.  c,  when  Julius  Caesar,  then  en-  casar's 
gaged  as  a  Roman  commander  in  the  conquest  i^'^^sion. 
of  Gaul,  crossed  the  Channel  with  two  legions  of  his  sol- 
diers (8,000  or  10,000  men),  and  entered  the  island.  He 
may  have  intended  no  more  than  to  warn  the  Britons 
against  aiding  their  kindred  in  Gaul,  for  he  hardly  moved 
from  his  landing-place,  and  he  left  the  island  in  three 
weeks.  But  the  next  year  he  repeated  the  invasion  with 
five  legions  instead  of  two,  and  then  advanced  beyond 
the  Thames,  defeating  the  Britons  in  several  battles,  tak- 
ing an  imjoortant  stronghold,  and  receiving  the  submis- 
sion of  a  number  of  tribes.  He  left  no  troops  in  the 
country  when  he  withdrew,  and  established  no  real  author- 
ity ;  but  Roman  influence  was  felt  from  that  time  among 
the  Britons  nearest  to  Gaul,  and  Roman  arts  and  manners 
were  gradually  introduced. 

Accounts  given  by  Caesar  and  other  writers  show  the 
Britons  in  the  interior  of  the  island  to  have  risen  in  that 


6  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.        [55  B.  C 

age  little  above  the  savage  state.  They  lived  chiefly  on 
flesh  and  milk,  and  clothed  themselves  with  skins.  On 
the  eastern  and  southern  coast  the  tribes  were  more 
advanced,  but  were  considerably  behind  the  better  part 
of  the  Gauls.  They  were  rich  in  cattle,  and  they  cul- 
tivated barley  and  wheat.  They  had  no  towns,  living 
Barbaric  Ordinarily  in  villages  of  huts,  built  in  the  bee- 
iife.  ]^jyg  form,  probably  much  like  the  wigwams  of 

American  Indian  tribes.  We  may  judge  that  their  state 
of  civilization  was  scarcely  higher  than  that  of  the  Iro- 
quois of  America  when  white  men  first  knew  the  latter 
people.  Like  the  American  aborigines,  they  painted 
themselves,  using  the  blue  stain  of  a  plant  called  woad. 

4.  The  Druids.  Caesar  described  a  remarkable  priest- 
hood, the  Druids,  who  possessed  great  influence  and 
power  among  the  Gauls.  Most  writers  on  the  subject, 
until  lately,  have  assumed  that  the  religion  represented 
by  the  Druids  was  one  common  to  all  the  Celtic  inhabitants 
of  Britain  and  Gaul.  But  recent  studies  have  tended  to 
the  conclusion  that  Druidism  had  its  origin  among  the 
people  who  preceded  the  Celts  ;  that  probably  the  Gaelic 
Celts  adopted  it,  and  adapted  it  to  their  own  mythology, 
but  that  there  is  no  evidence  of  its  existence  among  the 
Brythonic  tribes. 

According  to  these  newer  opinions,  the  original  Druids 
were  like  the  "medicine-men,"  the  soothsayers  and  magi- 
cians, of  other  savage  or  barbarous  races,  both  ancient 
and  modern.  They  practised,  no  doubt,  on  the  supersti- 
tious fears  of  their  Celtic  conquerors,  and  finally  got  a 
standing  among  them  in  a  priestly  character,  as  ministers 
of  the  gods.  At  last,  in  Gaul,  they  obtained  some  smat- 
tering of  Greek  ideas  and  learning,  and  rose  to  the  rank 
of  teachers  and  philosophers,  becoming  a  haughty  and 
tyrannical  sacred  order  or  caste,  more  powerful  than  the 


A.  D.43]         UNTIL  THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST.  / 

chiefs.     The  Romans   dreaded  their  influence,  and  de- 
stroyed  them   so   relentlessly  that    nothing  of 

/  .        1     1        11  Extinction 

their  order  or  system  survived  the  Roman  con-  of  the 
quest  of  Britain  and  Gaul.    That  certain  strange 
ruins  found  in  England  —  most  notably  the  famous  Stone- 
henge  on  Salisbury  Plain  —  are  remains  of  rude  temples 


STONEHENGE. 


that  were  built  for  Druidic  rites,  is  a  common  belief,  not 
improbable,  but  resting  on  no  certain  ground. 

5.  Roman  Britain.  It  was  not  until  nearly  a  century 
after  Caesar  that  the  Roman  conquest  of  Britain  was  be- 
gun (a.  d.  43).  It  was  a  conquest  never  finished,  for  the 
savage  tribes  in  the  northern  part  of  the  island,  beyond 
the  Forth  and  the  Clyde,  had  retreats  in  their  mountains 
which  the  Romans  could  not  reach. ^  Attempts  to  over- 
come them  were  given  up  at  last,  and  great  walls  were 

1  The  Romans  called  these  northern  tribes  Picts,  meaning  painted 
people,  because  they  painted  their  faces  when  they  went  to  war.  as 
the  subjugated  Britons  had  formerly  done,  and  as  wild  tribes  of 
American  Indians  are  doing  to  this  day. 


8 


BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.       [A.  D.  43 


Roman 
walls. 


Roman 
relics. 


built,  from  the  Solway  to  the  Tyne  and  from  the  Forth 
to  the  Clyde,  to  shut  them  out.  Ireland  was 
never  reached  by  the  Roman  arms. 
Britain  south  of  the  walls  was  occupied  and  ruled  by 
the  Romans  for  about  three  centuries  and  a  half.  In  that 
long  period  there  is  strangely  little  known  of  its  history, 
except  in  what  relates  to  the  fighting  by  which  it  was 
subdued  and  then  defended  against  the  northern  tribes. 
Vestiges  of  Roman  roads  and  Roman  camps,  fragments 
of  Roman  city  walls,  buried  foundations  of  the  city  homes 
and  country  villas  of  wealthy  Roman  citizens, 
broken  remains  of  Roman  handicraft  and  art, 
are  found  in  all  parts  of  the  country,  to  show  that  it  was 
once  covered  with  the  works  and  surfaced,  at  least,  with 

the  civilization  of 
the  all-conquer- 
ing race  of  Rome. 
But  how  numer- 
ously the  Romans 
were  settled  in 
Britain,  not  as  sol- 
diers or  ofificials, 
but  in  the  occu- 
pations of  private 
life,  and  in  what 
relations  the  con- 
querors and  the 
conquered  dwelt 
together,  with 
what  results  to 
the  latter,  —  these 
are  things,  for  the 
most  part,  th at  can 
only   be    guessed 


ROMAN    BRITAIN. 


31.  Cent.]        UNTIL  THE  ENGLISH   CONQUEST.  9 

from  scanty  signs.  It  is  probable  that  large  numbers  of 
the  native  Britons  were  drafted  into  the  Roman  armies, 
for  service  in  other  parts  of  the  great  empire,  and  that 
most  of  those  remaining  sank  into  the  condition  of  slaves. 
The  Romans  were  everywhere  great  builders  of  cities, 
and  there  is  evidence  that  they  built  many  in  Britain 
which  w^ere  populous  and  quite  splendidly  adorned.    Their 


REMAINS   OF   A    ROMAN    BATH,   AT    BATH. 


Londinium,  the  London  of  our  day,  though  not  the  polit- 
ical capital  of  the  province,  was  the  chief  centre  of  its 
trade.  The  seat  of  their  military  administration  was  Ebo- 
racum,  now  York.  Lindum  (modern  Lincoln),  Camulo- 
dunum  (Colchester),  Durovernum  (Canterbury),  Roman 
Durobrivce  (Rochester),  Venta  (Winchester),  ^^^^^^• 
Caleva  (Silchester),  Isca  (Exeter),  Glevum  (Gloucester), 
Aqu^  Sulis  (Bath),  Deva  (Chester),  were  all  important 
towns.  Chester  takes  its  English  name  from  the  Latin 
castrum  (camp)  of  the  Roman  legion  once  stationed  there; 


lO 


BRITAIN   AND    EARLY   ENGLAND. 


[43-407 


and  the  many  town-names  in  England  which  end  in 
"Chester,"  or  ''cester,"  or  ''caster,"  or  "  caer,"  are  sup- 
posed to  be  derived  from  similar  camps.  Yet,  of  all  the 
Roman  cities  built  in  Britain,  the  remains  now  existing, 
in  fragments  of  walls  and  buried  foundations,  are  very 
slight.  Even  the  sites  of  some  that  are  known  to  have 
been  important  cannot  be  found. 

The  most  lasting  work  of  the  Romans  in  Britain  was 


REMNANT    OF    ROMAN    MILITARY    ROAD    CALLED    WATLING   STREET. 

The  ruts  seen  are  worn  in  the  stone  foundation. 


the  construction  of  roads.  They  left  many  in  the  island 
Roman  which  Served  the  later  inhabitants  for  centuries, 
roads.  ^^-^j  which  furnished  foundations  for  some  of 

the  best  now  in  use.  A  long  highway,  from  the  Chan- 
nel, through  London,  to  Chester,  which  the  English,  in 
after-times,  named  Watling  Street  ;  another,  called  Ick- 
nield  Street,  which  ran   from    Norfolk  to    Cornwall ;   a 


407]  UNTIL  THE  ENGLISH   CONQUEST.  II 

third,  Eorminc  Street,  connecting  London  with  Lincoln 
and  York ;  and  a  fourth,  known  as  the  Fosse  Way,  which 
traversed  the  island  from  Devonshire  to  Lincoln,  —  were 
the  most  important  of  the  Roman  roads. 

Through  the  Romans,   Christianity  was  brought  into 
Britain  at  some  early  day  ;  but  little  is  known  christian- 
of  the  churches  established  in  their  time,  nor  ^^^• 
how  far  the  native  Britons  accepted  the  faith. 

6.  The  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  On  the  con- 
tinent, in  western  Europe,  the  northern  and  eastern 
boundary  of  Roman  conquest  was  the  river  Rhine.  At- 
tempts to  subdue  the  German  tribes  beyond  it  were  early 
given  up,  and  the  Romans  had  reason  very  soon  to  be 
satisfied  if  they  could  defend  a  fortified  frontier,  which 
ran  by  the  Rhine,  the  Danube,  and  the  Dniester,  from 
the  North  Sea  to  the  Black  Sea.  They  held  it  until 
nearly  the  middle  of  the  third  century  of  the  Christian 
era,  and  then  serious  breakings  of  the  barrier  began. 
These  ended,  soon  after  the  opening  of  the  German 
fifth  century,  in  an  avalanche  of  invasion,  by  iJ^vasion. 
great  confederacies  of  barbarous  and  semi-barbarous 
German  tribes,  the  most  formidable  of  which  were  known 
as  Franks  and  Goths.  The  whole  empire  of  Rome  in 
western  Europe  was  overwhelmed  ;  but  a  considerable 
empire  in  the  east,  with  its  capital  at  Constantinople, 
still  kept  the  Roman  name. 

Roman  authority  in  Britain  must  have  practically  come 
to  an  end  in  the  year  407,  when  the  last  legions  of  Roman 
soldiery  in  the  island,  already  left  to  themselves,  chose 
an  emperor  from  their  own  ranks  and  followed  him  to 
Gaul.  After  that,  for  forty  years,  the  Britons  and  the 
Roman  residents  left  in  Britain  fought  a  losing  fight 
with  invading  Picts  from  the  north,  with  Scots  from 
Ireland  (who,  by  settlement  in  Scotland,  gave  their  name 


12  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY    ENGLAND.  [446 

to  that  country  in  the  end),  and  with  piratical  Saxons 
from  the  German  coast.  In  446  they  were  at  the  end 
Roman  ^^  their  strength,  and,  according  to  a  later 
ment'o?"  chronicle,  they  cried  despairingly  to  one  of  the 
Britain.  j^g)-  gf  ^YiQ  Roman  generals  for  help.  "  The 
savages,"  they  said,  "drive  us  to  the  sea,  and  the  sea 
casts  us  back  upon  the  savages."  It  was  a  vain  cry, 
and  the  last.  The  Britain  of  the  Celt  and  the  Roman 
was  about  to  disappear,  transformed  by  a  destructive 
conquest  into  the  England  of  the  modern  world. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

1.  The  Island  of  Great  Britain. 

Topics. 

1.  Influences  affecting  England's  history. 

a.    Climate. 

d.    Harbors  and  rivers. 

c.  Resources. 

d.  Separation  from  continent. 

2.  Effect  of  these  influences  upon  her  political  development. 
REFERE^XE.  —  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  ch.  ii. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  portion  of  eastern  North 
America  has  the  same  latitude  as  England  ?  (2.)  Compare  the 
climate  of  the  two  and  give  the  reasons  for  the  difference. 
(3.)  Compare  the  rainfall  of  England  with  that  of  the  United 
States.  (4.)  What  is  the  cause  of  the  difference  ?  (5.)  What 
sort  of  coast-line  assists  the  interchange  of  ideas  and  products 
between  nations,  and  hence  promotes  civilization  ?  (6.)  Compare 
Europe  in  this  respect  with  Asia;  with  Africa;  England  with 
Russia.  (7.)  How  do  navigable  rivers  add  to  the  wealth  of  a 
nation  ?  (8.)  Name  some  of  the  good  harbors  and  navigable 
rivers  with  which  England  abounds.  (9.)  What  are  the  chief 
mineral  resources  of  the  British  Isles  ?  (10.)  What  bodies  of 
water  separate  England  from  the  continent  of  Europe?  (11.) 
What  is  the  shortest  distance  across?  (12.)  What  reputation  at 
the  present  day  has  the  passage  from  England  to  the  Continent? 
(13.)  What  must  have  been  true  about  it  before  the  U3e  of  steam- 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND    QUESTIONS.        13 

boats  or  large  sailing  craft?  (14.)  Show  how  this  would  be  a 
protection  against  invasion,  but  would  offer  little  hindrance  to 
peaceful  intercourse.  (15.)  What  traits  does  an  insular  posi- 
tion tend  to  develop  in  a  people?  (16.)  Might  it  tend  also  to 
strengthen  despotic  notions  in  government?  (17.)  What  safe- 
guard from  this  in  Britain's  proximity  to  the  continent  ? 

2.    The  Prehistoric  Inhabitants  of  Britain. 

Topics. 

I.  Traces  of  early  inhabitants. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  1-6;  Guest,  ch.  i.;  Traill,  i.  i;  Rip- 
ley's Races  of  Europe,  ch,  xi. ;  Freeman,  O.  E.  H.,  ch.  i.  6-8. 

3.  Celtic  Britain. 
Topics. 

1.  Early  Celtic  inhabitants. 

a.  Gaels  —  their  home  and  descendants. 

b.  Brythons  —  their  home  and  descendants. 

2.  Early  explorers. 

3.  Early  tin  trade. 

4.  Caesar's  invasion. 

5.  Barbaric  life  found  by  Caesar. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  6-11.  Celts  in  Britain:  Colby,  1-6; 
Traill,  i.  1-7,  70,  '^6^  98-114.  Caesar's  Gallic  War,  book  iv.  chs. 
20-27,  book  V.  chs.  1-22;  Guest,  ch.  iii. ;  Pearson,  i.  chs.  i.  and 
V. ;  Rhys,  Celtic  Britain. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  is  it  shown  that  tribes  are 
sprung  from  the  same  race  ?  (2.)  Name  the  province  of  France 
which  has  inhabitants  like  the  ancient  people  of  Britain.  (3.) 
Show  from  the  map  how  this  was  likely  to  be  so.  (4.)  Quote 
from  his  Gallic  War  Caesar's  opinion  of  these  people.  (5.)  What 
difficulty  did  he  find  in  invading  Britain  ?  (6.)  State  what  you 
think  to  be  the  advantages  of  an  insular  position  in  respect  to 
ease  of  invasion.  (7.)  Compare  Britain  in  this  respect  with 
France,  with  Germany,  with  Spain.  (8.)  Point  out  what  portion 
of  Britain  would  be  seized  first  by  every  invader,  and  tell  why 
you  think  so.  (9.)  What  parts  would  serve  as  a  refuge  from 
invaders  ?  (10.)  How  do  navigable  rivers  assist  invaders  ?  (i  i.) 
What  three  dialects  of-  the  Celtic  tongue  are  still  spoken  m  the 
British  Isles  ?    (12.)  Can  a  Londoner  understand  them  ? 


14  UNTIL   THE    ENGLISH    CONQUEST. 

4.  The  Druids. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Celtic  religion. 

2.  Its  priesthood. 

3.  Extinction  of  the  Druids. 

References.  —  Guest,  21,22;  Gardiner,  i.  10;   Traill,  i.  33-36 ; 
Pearson,  i.  12,   17-21  ;  Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 

5.  Roman  Britain. 
Topics. 

1.  Extent  of  the  Roman  conquest. 

2.  Roman  walls. 

3.  Evidences  of  Roman  civilization. 

4.  Probable  fate  of  the  Britons. 

5.  Roman  cities. 

6.  Roman  roads. 

7.  Christianity. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  12-23.  Romans  in  I3ritain  :  Gar- 
diner, i.  19-23,  24-25  ;  Traill,  i.  14-23  ;  Pearson,  i.  chs.  ii.  and 
iii.  ;  Rhys,  ch.  iii. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  Who  was  the  most  famous  of  the 
Roman  emperors  ?  (2.)  How  long  before  the  Roman  occupa- 
tion of  Britain  did  he  live  ?  (3.)  Give  a  description  of  Rome 
under  Augustus  in  respect  to  its  buildings,  streets,  and  public 
works  in  general.  (4.)  Show  from  this  the  benefits  which  would 
accrue  to  the  ancient  Britons  from  the  Roman  conquest.  (5.) 
Did  the  Romans  bring  in  vices  as  well.''  (6.)  What  is  the  effect 
of  superimposing  a  higher  civilization  upon  a  lower  ?  Illustrate 
this  from  the  case  of  the  English  and  Spanish  settlers  in  Amer- 
ica and  the  Indians.  (7.)  Did  Britain  ever  achieve  enough  luxury 
to  reconcile  a  Roman  emperor  to  living  there  ?  (Guest,  35.) 
(8.)  Locate  on  the  map  the  Roman  walls.  (9.)  By  means  of  their 
great  settlements,  trace  the  extent  of  the  Roman  occupation. 

6.  The  Pall  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
Topics. 

1.  Northern  boundary  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

2.  German  invasion. 

3.  ^oman  abandonment  of  Britain. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  23-26;   Church's  Beginnings  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  Introd.  and  ch.  i. ;  Pearson,  i.  ch.  iv. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST  AND  SETTLEMENT. 

7.  The  Conquest.  If  tradition  be  trustworthy,  the 
German  freebooters  got  their  first  footing  in  the  island 
as  alHes  of  the  despairing  Britons,  who  turned  to  them 
as  the  least  dreaded  of  their  enemies  and  hired  them  to 
fight  against  the  Picts.  But  the  meagre  story  that  is 
gleaned  from  a  precious  old  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  and 
from  an  ancient  British  history,^  both  written  long  after 
the  event,  is  neither  certain  nor, clear. 

"  Men  from  three  tribes  in  Germany  "  are  mentioned  in 
the  Chronicle  as  having  shared  the  conquest  of  Britain 
between  them.  Those  three  tribes  were  the  Engles,  the 
Saxons,  and  the  Jutes,  all  coming  from  the  region  between 
the  Baltic  and  the  North  Sea,  now  comprised  in  the 
kingdom   of    Denmark   and   the    northwestern 

.  .  .         Engles 

states  of  the  German  Empire.     The  probability  saxons, 
seems    to   be   that  other   tribes,  from    all   the 
coast  between  the  Elbe  and  the  Rhine,  and  especially 
the  Frisians  of  modern  Holland,  took  part  in  the  attack ; 
but  they  are  not  named. 

Jutland,  in  northern  Denmark,  and  the  small  district 
of  Angeln,  at  the  south  of  it,  in  Schleswig,  still 
bear  the  names  of  the  Jutes  and  the  Engles,  gmaiEng- 
to  mark  the  old  homes  from  which  they  went 
forth  to  the  conquest  of  new  ones.      Immediately  south 

^  De  Excidio  Britaimicr^  written  by  Gildas,  a  Welsh  monk  of 
the  sixth  century,  whose  later  life  was  in  Brittany,  where  he  founded 
a  monastery. 


i6 


BRITAIN    AND    EARLY    ENGLAND.   [5TH  Cent. 


of  them,  in  modern  Hanover,  on  the  Elbe,  was  the  dis- 
trict from  which  the  Saxons  went.  Between  Jutes, 
Engles,  Saxons,  and  Frisians,  who  spoke  the  same  lan- 
guage in  dialects  slightly  different,  the  kinship  was  close. 
They  were  the  northern  sea-kings  of  that  age,  fore- 
runners of  the  Northmen  of  a  later  period,  about  whom 


THE  OLDER  HOME  OF  THE  ENGLISH  RACE. 

we  shall  have  something  to  learn.  At  Flensborg,  Schles- 
wig-Holstein,  in  the  Museum  of  Northern  Antiquities,  a 
boat  is  shown  that  undoubtedly  represents  the  "  long 
ships  "  in  which  their  bold  voyages  to  Britain  were  made. 

It  was  found  some  years  ago,  buried  in  a  peat- 
"long  bog  at  Nydam,  South  Jutland,  so  perfectly  pre- 

served  that  the  parts  could  be  put  together 
and  the  form  and  entire  construction  restored.  It  is 
seventy-seven  feet  long  and  nearly  eleven  feet  broad. 
Its  planks  of  oak  were  fastened  together  with  iron  nails, 
but  bound  to  the  oaken  ribs  with  ropes ;  the  seams  were 
calked  with  a  woolen  stuff  and  smeared  with  pitch.     It 


449-477] 


ENGLISH   CONQUEST. 


17 


is  a  well-shaped  ship,  having  rowlocks  for  twenty-eight 
oars,  but  no  masts. 

According  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  the  first  of 
the  sea-kings  who  seized  and  occupied  a  district  in 
Britain  were  two  brothers,  Hengist  and  Horsa,  leaders 
of  a  band  of  Jutes,  who  landed  at  Ebbsfleet  in  Thanet, 
in  449.  Between  that  year  and  473,  Hengist  (Horsa 
having  fallen  in  battle)  mastered  the  greater  part  of 
Kent  and  became  a  king.  In  477  a  war-party  of  Saxons, 
under  a  chieftain  named  Elle,  and  his  three  Leaders  of 
sons,  began  the  conquest  of  a  "  South  Saxon  "  Jonic  inva- 
kingdom  which  touched  that  of  Kent  on  the  ^^°^- 
south.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  rich  and  populous  dis- 
trict, and  they  were  fourteen  years  in  making  the  con- 
quest.    Soon  afterwards  another  Saxon  host,  commanded 


ANCIENT   JUTISH    BOAT. 


by  Cerdic  and  his  son  Cynric,  started  upon  a  career 
of  destructive  conquest  that  went  on  for  many  years, 
until  it  resulted  in  a  "West  Saxon"  kingdom,  which 
stretched  from  the  domain  of  the  South  Saxons  to  the 
Severn  River  and  spread  north  of  the  Thames.  Mean- 
time, two  other  Saxon  parties,  "  East  Saxon  "  and  " 


l8  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY    ENGLAND.     [6th  Cent. 

die  Saxon,"  had  established  themselves  on  the  northern 
bank  of  the  lower  Thames.^ 

The  conquests  of  the  Engles  in  Britain  were  more 
extensive  than  those  of  the  Saxons  and  Jutes  combined ; 
but  there  is  no  account  to  tell  us  when  or  where  their 
landings  were  made.  They  are  said  to  have  wholly 
deserted  their  Schleswig  home,  transplanting  themselves 
as  a  nation,  in  such  numbers  that  the  greater  part  of 
Britain  took  their  name.^  First  and  last,  the  Engles 
took  possession  of  the  whole  eastern  part  of  the  island, 
from  the  Stour  to  the  Forth,  penetrating  far 

OC  w  tic* 

mentsof      inland  throuo:h  the  valleys  of  the  Humber,  the 

the  Teu- 

tonic  Trent,  the  Tees,  the   Tyne,  and    the   Tweed. 

Norfolk  and  Suffolk  represent  in  their  names 
the  North  Folk  and  South  Folk  into  which  the  kingdom 
of  East  Anglia  was  divided.  Between  the  Humber  and 
the  Forth,  on  the  eastern  coast,  the  Engles  founded  two 
kingdoms,  Deira  and  Bernicia,  which  were  at  war  until 
Deira  was  conquered,  and  a  greater  kingdom  of  North- 
umbria  then  took  the  place  of  both.  On  the  upper  waters 
of  the  Trent  still  another  kingdom  was  formed,  which  bore 
the  name  of  Mercia,  because  it  occupied  the  "march  "  or 
border  of  the  country  into  which  the  unconquered  Brit- 
ons had  been  driven. 

1  The  South  Saxon  kingdom  is  represented  by  the  modern  Eng- 
lish county  of  Sussex,  that  of  the  East  Saxons  by  the  county  of 
Essex,  and  that  of  the  Middle  Saxons  by  Middlesex.  The  modern 
names,  it  will  be  seen,  are  merely  clipped  pronunciations  of  the 
original  "  South  Saxon,"  "  East  Saxon,"  and  "  Middle  Saxon."  In 
like  manner,  the  West  Saxon  kingdom  came  to  be  called  Wessex, 
and  its  region,  which  covers  several  counties,  is  often  referred  to 
by  that  name  ;  as  by  Thomas  Hardy  in  his  novels. 

2  After  a  few  generations  the  Saxons  and  Jutes  accepted  the 
name  of  Englishmen,  and  all  that  part  of  Britain  which  the  German 
invaders  occupied  was  known  as  Engla-land. 


6th  Cent.] 


ENGLISH  CONQUEST. 


19 


Before  the  end 
of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, the  Engles 
were  in  posses- 
sion of  southeast- 
ern Scotland  (as 
we  name  it  now) 
and  eastern  and 
middle  England  ; 
the  Jutes  were 
in  Kent  and  the 
Isle  of  Wight  ; 
the  Saxons  held 
the  remainder  of 
southern  England 
as  far  westward 
as  to  Devonshire 
and  Wales.  The 
surviving  and  un- 
conquered  Brit- 
ons were  still 
holding  Cornwall, 
Devonshire,  part 
of  Somerset,  and 
Wales,  besides  a 
strip  of  western 
coast  from  the 
Dee  to  the  Clyde,  called  Cumbria  sometimes,  and  some- 
times Strath clyde  ;  and  the  Picts  and  Scots  were  in  the 
highlands  of  the  farther  north. 

8.  The  Extinction  of  Christianity  and  of  Roman 
Civilization.  The  Engles,  Jutes,  and  Saxons  were  not 
savages  when  they  subjugated  Britain,  but  they  were 
barbarians  and  pagans ;  they  were  farther  from  civiliza- 


BRITAIN,    A.    D.    597. 


20 


BRITAIN    AND    EARLY  ENGLAND.    [6th  Cent. 


tion  than  most  of  the  Teutonic  tribes  which  overran 
other  parts  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  that  same  dread- 
ful age,  because  they  had  Hved  in  a  corner  of  Europe 
remote  from  the  influence  of  Rome.  Christianity  had 
not  reached  them,  and  they  still  worshipped  the  old 
Teutonic  gods.  The  Roman  civilization  and  the  Chris- 
tianity that  they  found  in 
Britain  had  no  meaning 
to  them,  no  interest,  no 
charm,  and  they  seem  to 
have  destroyed  both  with 
a  ruthless  violence  that 
was  not  shown  in  the 
conquest  of  Italy  or  Gaul. 
There  are  different  opin- 
ions among  historians  on 
this  point ;  but  those  of 
weightiest  authority  (re- 
presented by  such  writers 
as  Freeman  and  Green) 
find  reason  to  believe  that 
the  English  conquerors  of 
Britain  sj^ared  little.  So 
far  as  they  had  mastered 
the  island  when  the  sixth 
century  closed,  cities  and  country  mansions  had  prob- 
ably gone  down  in  fiery  ruin  ;  churches  and  priests  had 
disappeared,  and  the  old  inhabitants  (if  this  view  is  cor- 
rect) had  been  driven  out  or  enslaved  or  slain.  Those 
driven  out  either  fled  across  the  Channel  to  their  kin- 
dred  of  Brittany  in  Gaul,  or  retreated  into  the  moun- 
tains and  behind  the  moorland  wastes  of  western  Britain, 
where  the  invaders  called  them  Wealh  or  Welsh,  a  term 
of  contempt,  which  the  Germans  applied  to  foreigners 


EARLY    ENGLISH    SPEARS    AND 
KNIVES. 


6th  Cent.]  ENGLISH    SETTLEMENT.  21 

in  general,  and  which  has  given  its  lasting  name  to 
Wales.  1 

9.  The  Primitive   Form  of    English  Society.     It  is 

not  to  be  supposed  that  the  German  tribes  which  entered 
England  were  too  barbarous  for  a  settled  life.  They 
were  sea-rovers  and  warriors,  but  they  had  likewise  be- 
come cultivators  of  the  soil,  and  had  learned  many  of  the 
simpler  arts  of  peaceful  life.  Their  wives  and  children, 
flocks  and  herds,  probably  came  with  them  or  followed 
them,  in  most  instances,  to  their  new  homes.  They  are 
supposed  to  have  come  in  many  bands,  large  and  small, 
at  different  times,  and  usually  to  have  made  settlements 
of  kindred  families  together. 

They  had  always  been  a  free  people  in  the  political 
sense  of  the  term  ;  that  is  to  say,  all  recognized  mem- 
bers of  the  community  —  its  "  freemen  "  —  had  a  voice  in 
public  affairs.  But  they  held  slaves  {thcozus),  who  had 
no  rights.  For  the  most  part,  probably,  these  were  cap- 
tives taken  in  war.  In  time  there  came  to  be  other 
classes  of  servants  and  dependents,  who  were 

1  1  1  r  j>    •  •  Theows, 

not  slaves,  but  who  were  ''  untree     m  various  ceoris,  and 

6orls 

degrees,  and  who  did  not  enjoy  the  freemen's 
rights  ;  but  the  great  body  of  the  original  English  set- 
tlers were  probably  landowners  and  freemen,  each  hav- 
ing a  voice  in  the  affairs  of  the  whole.     At  the  beginning 
there  were  two  classes  among  them,  the  ccorls,  or  com- 

^  From  incidents  connected  with  some  period  in  the  long  strug- 
gle of  the  British  against  the  English  there  grew  the  British  legends 
that  came  to  be  gathered  about  the  name  of  King  Arthur.  That 
an  Arthur  existed  in  reality,  or  that  any  single  hero  of  British  tra- 
dition is  represented  by  any  character  among  his  Knights  of  the 
Round  Table,  is  doubtful ;  and  whether  the  scenery  of  the  great 
Celtic  romance  is  to  be  looked  for  on  the  borders  of  Wales,  or  far 
north,  in  and  around  the  old  British  kingdom  of  Strathclyde,  is 
likewise  a  question  very  much  in  dispute. 


22  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.    [6th  Cent. 

mon  freemen,  and  the  eorh,  or  nobles  ;  but  the  introduc- 
tion of  royalty  and  its  surroundings  produced  different 
gradations  of  rank. 

Royalty  was  a  new  institution  to  these  tribes.  In 
their  older  home  they  had  had  no  kings.  The  chiefs 
(plain  elders,  or  ealdoiinen,  before)  who  led  them  to 
their  conquests  in  Britain  were  raised  to  regal  dignity ; 
but  the  kingship  was  elective  from  the  beginning. 
Though  the  kings  were  all  chosen  from  heroic 
families,  supposed  to  be  descended  from  the 
gods,  and  though  son  was  expected  to  succeed  father,  it 
was  only  so  by  popular  consent  ;  and  that  principle  has 
controlled  the  succession  to  the  English  throne  down  to 
the  present  day.  The  monarchy  is  hereditary  ;  but  the 
nation,  through  its  Parliament,  has  never  lost  its  right  of 
selection  among  the  heirs. 

10.  The  Seed-Planting  of  Free  Institutions.  The 
political  organization  of  the  early  English  seems  to  have 
had  for  its  base  or  starting-point  a  quite  democratic  and 
locally  independent  tozvnshipy  taking  its  name  from  the 
"tun"  or  defensive  inclosure  of  the  village  settlement. 
The  townships  were  formed  into  groups  called  Hundreds 
in  some  parts  of  England,  and  Wapentakes  in  other 
parts  ;  ^  and  these  were  finally  grouped  in  larger  govern- 
mental   districts    called    SJiires,   to  which   the 

Townships,  ^-  r  i  t-       i        i  it 

hundreds,  couutics  01  modcm  England  correspond.  In 
all  those  divisions,  from  the  township  to  the 
shire,  justice  was  administered  and  public  affairs  were 
regulated  by  the  ''gemot"  or  "moot"  —  that  is,  the 
meeting  —  of  the  freemen  or  their  chosen  representa- 

^  The  name  Wapentake  is  supposed  to  have  signified  the  taking 
up  of  weapons  (arms),  and  to  have  been  applied  originally  to  a 
military  division  or  district ;  while  the ////;/^/;y<'/ probably  indicated, 
in  the  first  instance,  a  district  occupied  by  a  hundred  warriors. 


6th  Cent.]  ENGLISH    SETTLEMENT.  23 

tives.  The  tun-moot  of  the  township  may  be  looked 
upon  as  the  parent  of  the  town-meeting  of  New  Eng- 
land and  of  other  parts  of  the  United  States. 

From  the  tun-moot,  four  ''best  men"  were  chosen  to 
attend,  with  its  "gerefa"  (reeve,  or  headman),  the  hun- 
dred-moot and  the  great  ''folk-moot"  of  the  shire  ;  and 
this  was  the  beginning  of  the  development  in  England 
of  the  grand  political  device  of  representative  govern- 
ment. The  English  may  have  brought  the  idea  of  pop- 
ular representation  from  Germany,  but  they 
alone  among  the  German  people  nurtured  it 
and  kept  it  alive.  For  many  centuries  the  local  moots 
kept  their  importance  in  the  English  judicial  system,  and 
were  schools  in  which  the  people  learned  practices  of 
election  and  representation  that  made  them  familiar  with 
the  idea,  and  led  them  on  to  its  larger  uses. 

For  war,  the  whole  body  of  free  landholders  was  an 
always  armed  host,  —  a  national  militia,  called  the 
"  Fyrd,"  —  which  was  subject  to  the  call  of  the  king. 

11.  Losses  in  Freedom.  Much  of  the  independence 
and  equality  that  seem  to  have  prevailed  at  first  among 
the  English  freemen  was  unfortunately  lost  in  time. 
From  one  cause  and  another,  it  ceased  to  be  the  general 
fact  that  they  owned  land.  A  class  of  "land-less  "  men, 
on  one  hand,  and  a  class  of  "land-lords,"  owning  large 
estates,  on  the  other,  came  into  existence.  The  landless 
man  became  a  hireling,  or  else  a  tenant  of  land  owned  by 
another,  for  the  use  of  which  he  either  paid  rent  or  per- 
formed labor  of  some  kind.  In  either  case  he  was  looked 
upon  as  having  lost  personal  responsibility,  and  was  re- 
quired at  length  to  put  himself  in  dependence  on  some 
lord,^  who  undertook  to  be  answerable  for  him  to  the 

1  The  word  "  lord,"  in  its  Anglo-Saxon  form,  was  hlafo7'd^  sup- 
posed to  have  signified  originally  loaf-giver. 


24  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY    ENGLAND.   [6th  Cent. 

courts,  and  who,  of  course,  exacted  service  and  deference 
in  return. 

Other  causes  helped  to  produce  a  state  of  things  out 
of  which  (according  to  the  view  here  given)  there  came, 
in  time,  a  class  of  townships  very  different  from  those 
described  above,  their  population  being  made  up  of  ten- 
ants and  other  dependents,  more  or  less  subservient  to 
a  superior,  or  lord.  At  a  later  time  such  de- 
pendent  townships  were  known  as  '' manors," 
and  questions  relating  to  them  have  been  the  subject  of 
much  study  and  discussion  in  recent  years.^ 

Even  to  the  present  day,  something  of  popular  local 

government  has  lived  on  in  the  old  manorial  townships, 

survivinsf  especially  in  the  parish  vestrv-meet- 

Local  self-  . 

govern-  iugs,  which  took  thc  place,  to  a  great  extent,  of 
the  township-moots.  This  came  from  a  gradual 
confusion  of  townships  with  parishes,  since  their  boun- 
daries were  made,  generally,  to  coincide,  when  church 
parishes  were  formed. ^ 

12.  The  Growth  of  an  Aristocracy.  As  stated  be- 
fore, the  creation  of  monarchies  gave  rise  to  different 
orders  of  nobility,  with  gradations  of  rank.  Sons  and 
brothers  of  the  king  rose  to  a  rank  above  other  nobles, 
and  the  title  of  *'atheling,"  or  "etheling,"  which  had 
been  common  to  all  the  noble  class  of  eorls,  came  to  be 
restricted  to  princes  of  the  royal  blood.  The  counsellors 
and  personal  followers  of  the  king  —  his  "gesiths"  and 
"thanes,"  as  they  were  called   (the  thane  seeming  to  be 

1  Some  account  of  the  old  English  "  manor"  will  be  found  below 
in  section  30. 

2  In  the  United  States,  the  term  "  parish  "  is  often  applied  to  the 
membership  or  congregation  of  a  church.  In  England,  it  is  a 
church  district,  geographically  defined ;  and  so  it  is  in  some  Amer- 
ican states.  In  most  states,  the  Protestant  Episcopal  church  is 
organized  in  parishes  which  are  geographically  defined. 


6th  Cent.] 


en(;lish  settlement. 


25 


"primarily  the  warrior-gesith  ") — acquired  distinctions 
of  rank. 

They  acquired  lordships  in  land,  too,  as  rewards  for 
their  service  to  royalty,  and  such  land-grants  often  car- 
ried with  them  certain  rights  of  magistracy,  called  "  sac 
and  soc,"  more  or  less  interfering  with  the  hundred-moot. 


The  hall  in  the  middle,  the  church  on  the  right.     The  nobleman  and  his  wife  are  dis- 
tributing alms  to  the  poor. 

This  created  an  aristocracy  against  whose  power  it  be- 
came more  and  more  difficult  for  the  plain  freemen  to 
maintain  their  ancient  rights.  Even  the  free-  Landhoid- 
holder  of  land,  as  well  as  the  landless  man,  be-  ^^^• 
gan  to  find  himself  driven,  for  safety  or  for  some  other 
advantage,  to  place  his  person  and  property  under  the 
protection  and  patronage  of  a  lord.  That  popular  rights 
and  a  popular  spirit  in  local  government  were  never 
quite  destroyed  by  these  arbitrary  tendencies  is  one  of 
the  most  striking  facts  in  English  history. 


26  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY    ENGLAND.    [6th  Cent. 

The  distinctions  between  man  and  man  produced  by 
differences  of  rank  were  measured  with  great  exactness 
by  the  price  put  on  the  life  of  each  in  his  class.  By  the 
law  of  all  the  Germanic  peoples,  the  taking  of  a  man's 
life  could  be  atoned  for  to  his  kindred  by  a  payment  of 
money,  called  "wergild,"  fixed  according  to  his 
status  in  society.  Not  only  the  value  of  his 
life,  but  his  whole  weight  and  worth  as  a  citizen,  were 
determined  by  the  wergild.  In  the  courts,  for  example, 
the  oath  of  a  thane,  whose  wergild  was  1200  shillings, 
was  held  to  equal  the  oaths  of  six  common  freemen, 
whose  wergild  was  only  200  shillings  each. 

13.  The  'Witenageinot.  The  gemot,  or  moot,  of  the 
whole  kingdom  was  not  a  folk-moot,  or  popular  body, 
made  up,  like  those  of  the  hundred  and  the  shire,  of 
elected  representatives  of  the  people.  It  was  a  Witciia- 
gcmot,  or  assembly  of  "the  Wise,"  those  designated  as 
"  the  wise  "  being  the  greater  officers  of  the  government 
and  the  royal  household,  the  king's  chosen  counsellors 
and  friends.  After  the  conversion  of  the  English  to 
Christianity,  the  bishops  and  abbots  of  the  church  were 
admitted  to  seats.  Practically  it  was  a  body  selected  by 
the  king,  and  it  had  almost  nothing  of  the  representative 
character  or  the  powers  of  the  English  Parliament  of 
later  times.  Yet  it  seems  to  have  acted  with  consider- 
able independence,  and  to  have  frequently  exercised  no 
little  control  over  the  kings. 

14.  Conversion  of  the  English.  While  Christianity 
was  extinguished  by  the  English,  during  the  first  cen- 
tury and  a  half  of  their  conquest,  it  lived  on  among  the 
unconquered  Britons  of  Wales.  In  Ireland,  too,  at  the 
same  time,  it  was  having  a  wonderful  growth,  from  seed 
planted  in  the  fifth  century  by  St.  Patrick,  who  returned 
to    the   island   as  a    Christian   missionary   after   having 


6th  Cent.] 


ENGLISH    SETTLEMENT. 


27 


escaped  from  captivity  in  it  as  a  slave.  An  Irish  church, 
burning  with  devotion  and  zeal,  had  grown  up,  separated 
from  the  Christian  church  in  other  parts  of  western 
Europe,  and  differing  from  it  in  many  respects.  Its 
monasteries  were  becoming  the  most  famous  schools  of 
that  dark  age  ;  its  missionaries  were  the  most  ardent 
in  the  field.  They  were  in  Scottish  Britain  before  the 
sixth  century  closed,  and  the  pagan  English  were  soon 
to  receive  the  gospel  from  their  lips. 

But  missionaries  from  Rome  were  the  first  on  English 
ground.  Everybody  has  read 
the  interesting  story,  told  by 
the  Venerable  Bede,  of  St. 
Gregory,  the  good  priest,  who 
saw  some  fair-haired  English 
boys,  captives  of  the  cruel  war 
between  Deira  and  Bernicia, 
being  sold  in  the  slave  market 
at  Rome.  English  faces  were 
probably  new  there,  though 
the  slave-selling  was  a  common 
sight.  He  was  told  that  they 
came  from  the  pagan  island- 
ers of  Britain,  and  were  called 
Angles.  "Right,"  NonAngu, 
said   he,    "for   they   sedAngeii. 

have  angel  faces,  and  should 
be  co-heirs  with  the  angels 
in  heaven."    When  he  learned 

that  their  country  was  named  Deira,  he  cried,  "  Truly 
are  they  de  ira,  withdrawn  from  wrath  and  called  to  the 
mercy  of  Christ."  When  the  name  of  their  king,  Ella, 
was  told  him,  he  exclaimed  again,  "  Halleluja,  the  praise 
of  God  must  be  sung  in  those  parts !  "     Gregory  spoke 


3''i'!i!li!;ali:!. 


^ili(i,|!tl 


SAXON    CROSS    AT    RUTHWELL, 
ABOUT    680   A.  D. 


28  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.       [597-627 

in  the  Latin  language,  and  thus  he  made  a  happy  play 
upon  the  names. 

Some  years  afterwards,  St.  Gregory  became  bishop 
or  pope  of  Rome,  and  then,  in  the  year  597,  he  sent  a 
company  of  monks,  under  one  Augustine,  to  win  Eng- 
land to  the  Christian  faith.  They  entered  Kent,  whose 
king,  Ethelbert,  had  married  a  Christian  princess,  Ber 

tha,  from  Gaul,  and  there  they  were  so  favor- 
Augustine.       T  .      ,.  -  T  II-  1 

ably  listened  to  that  the  knig  and  a  great  num- 
ber of  the  people  were  soon  baptized.  Augustine  was 
made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  (the  capital  of  Kent), 
and  his  successors  in  that  see,  to  this  day,  have  had 
the  primacy,  or  honorary  precedence,  in  the  English 
church. 

Ethelbert  had  acquired  such  power  that  he  seems  to 
have  been  recognized  by  the  other  kings  south  of  the 
H umber  as  an  overlord,  having  some  kind  of  rank  above 

them,  and  bearing  the  title  of  Brctzvalda^  the 

Augustine  .  .  ^       .  .    .      .  ,.  ,_. 

and  precise  meaning  or  which  is  not  known.     His 

influence  brought  about  an  acceptance  of  Chris- 
tianity by  the  East  Anglians  and  the  East  Saxons,  and 
the  marriage  of  his  sister  to  Edwin,  king  of  Northum- 
bria,  led  to  its  introduction  into  that  kingdom. 

When  King  Edwin  proposed  to  the  thanes  of  his 
Witenagemot  that  they  should  listen  to  the  Christian 
missionaries,  Bede  tells  us  that  one  of  them  said  :  ''Truly 
the  life  of  a  man  in  this  world,  compared  with  that  life 
whereof  we  wot  not,  is  on  this  wise.  It  is  as  when  thou, 
O  king,  art  sitting  at  supper  with  thine  ealdor- 
thane's  men  and  thy  thanes  in  the  time  of  winter,  when 
the  hearth  is  lighted  in  the  midst  and  the  hall 
is  warm,  but  without  the  rains  and  the  snow  are  falling 
and  the  winds  are  howling  ;  then  cometh  a  sparrow  and 
flyeth  through  the  house  ;  she  cometh  in  by  one  door 


627-686] 


ENGLISH    SETTLEMENT. 


29 


and  goeth  out  by  another.  ...  So  it  is  with  the  Hfe 
of  man ;  it  is  but  for  a  moment ;  what  goeth  before  it 
and  what  cometh  after  it,  wot  we  not  at  all.  Wherefore 
if  these  strangers  can  tell  us  aught,  that  we  may  know 
whence  man  cometh  and  whither  he  goeth,  let  us  hearken 
to  them  and  follow  their  law."  ^  In  this  little  speech 
there  is  a  charming  touch  of  simple  poetry,  which  often 
showed  itself  in  the  nature  of  the  rude  Englishmen  of 
that  olden  time. 

But  a  great  reaction  against  the  Christians  had  already 
occurred  in  the  south,  and  soon  followed  in  the  north. 
Edwin  lost  his  life  in  battle  with  the  Mercians  and  the 
Welsh  (633),  and   Christianity    seemed  to  be  perishing 
again  in  all  the  kingdoms  except  Kent.     Then  it  was 
that  Irish  missionaries  came  to  the  rescue  of  the  faith. 
A  prince  named  Oswald,  who  had  spent  his  youth  in  ex- 
ile, and  who  had  received  Christian  teaching  at  a  famous 
Irish  monastery  on  the  island  of  Hy  or  lona,  insh  mis- 
was  raised  to  the    Northumbrian  throne,   and  sionanes. 
missionaries   from    lona   came  at  his   call,  led    by  one 
Aidan,     of    saintly 
fame.     Their    zeal 
triumphed      every- 
where ;         monas- 
teries were  thickly 
planted,  and  the  re- 
ligion   of    the     cross  remains  of  ancient   CELTIC  CHURCH.2 

was         established 

throughout  the  English  north.  Presently,  the  arms  of 
Oswald  and  his  son  Oswy  opened  Mercia  and  Wessex  to 
mission  labors,  which  obtained  success  ;  East  Anglia 
accepted  the  faith  anew,  and  all  England  had  nominally, 

1  Bede,  Ecclesiastical  History,  book  ii.  ch.  xiii. 

2  On  the  island  of  Eilean-na-Naoimh,  near  lona. 


30         BRITAIN    AND    EARLY    ENGLAND.  [7th-8th  Cent. 

but  not  actually,  abandoned  its  heathen  gods  before  the 
seventh  century  closed. 

15.  Christian  Culture.  —  Early  Literature.  The 
civilizing  influence  of  the  Christian  church,  in  its  early 
working,  was  shown  nowhere  more  quickly  or  more 
strikingly  than  among  the  English  of  the  north.  It 
made  no  sudden  change  in  the  character  of  the  people 
at  large,  but  it  drew  out  of  the  common  mass  many  fine 
and  pure  natures,  to  give  them  a  cultivation  in  intellect 
and  spirit,  and  to  make  them  mouthpieces  and  examples 
of  that  which  was  nobler  than  feasting  and  war.  Thus 
great  and  peculiar  forces  were  brought  to  bear  on  the 
development  in  English  genius  of  what  is  highest  and 
best. 

The  surpassing  product  of  English  genius  has  been 
in  literature,  and  the  Engles  appear  to  have  been  the 
part  of  the  original  English  race  in  which  the  germ  of  it 
was  fruitful  first.  They  had  brought  with  them  from 
their  primitive  home  a  store  of  unwritten  song,  more  of 
which  has  been  saved  for  us,  by  the  loving  labor  of  Eng- 
lish monks,  than  we  get  in  any  other  European  country 
Early  Eng-  f^om  SO  early  a  time.  ''  Widsith,"  The  Song  of 
hsh poems.  ^Y\q  Traveller,  which  tells  of  a  minstrel's  wan- 
derings in  the  age  of  the  wars  of  the  Goths  ;  "  Beowulf," 
the  most  ancient  of  epics  from  any  Germanic  source  ; 
"The  Fight  at  Finnesburg,"  which  celebrates  afresh  one 
of  the  incidents  of  "  Beowulf  ;  "  and  the  fragment  of 
"  Waldhere,"  which  embalms  a  memory  of  Attila's  time, 
—  may  represent  very  little  of  the  store  out  of  which 
the  oldest  English  gleemen  drew  the  songs  that  they 
sang  in  the  halls  of  the  thanes,  but  they  are  enough  to 
give  us  glimpses  of  the  quality  of  mind  in  those  early 
ancestors  of  ours. 

In  northern  England,  these  robust  song-makers  came 


7TH-8TH  Cent.]       ENGLISH    SETTLEMENT.  31 

into  contact  with  Celtic  peoples,  more  inventive  and  finer 
in  poetic  sensibility  than  themselves,  but  less  vigorous  in 
imagination  and  less  bold  in  thought,  who  brought  them 
the  gospel  of  Christ,  drew  them  into  quiet  monasteries, 
taught  them  letters,  and  showed  them  the  beauty  of  a 
peaceful  and  pious  life.  All  that  was  spiritual,  poetical, 
and  thoughtful  in  the  Engles  of  the  north  re-  The  Celtic 
sponded  quickly  to  the  teaching  of  the  first  "^A^ence. 
Irish  missionaries,  and  the  monasticism  then  planted 
proved  most  favorable  to  the  refining  of  the  rude  genius 
of  that  race.  Poets,  scholars,  apostles,  found  their  call- 
ing and  their  preparation  in  the  religious  communities 
that  rose  quickly  in  the  Northumbrian  field.  Cuthbcrt, 
the  most  lovable  of  English  saints  ;  Caedmon,  who  be- 
came the  first  of  known  English  poets;  Bede,  —  ''the 
Venerable  Bede,"  as  he  has  always  been  reverently 
named ;  Alcuin,  friend,  counsellor,  and  teacher  of  Charle- 
magne, —  these  are  among  the  shining  names  they  had 
placed  on  the  roll  of  great  Englishmen  before  the  eighth 
century  was  closed. 

Caedmon  was  a  herdsman  of  the  seventh  century,  who 
served  humbly  at  the  monastery  of  the  abbess  Hilda,  on 
the  seashore  at  Whitby.  Bede  relates  that  he  began  to 
compose  pious  poems  in  obedience  to  a  vision  or  dream. 
Exceptino^  some  verses  quoted  by  Bede,  nothing 

,  r    r-      .  ,  Ml  Caedmon. 

was  known  ot  Csedmon  s  poetry  until  the  sev- 
enteenth century,  when  an  ancient  Anglo-Saxon  manu- 
script was  found,  part  of  which  is  believed  by  many 
scholars  to  be  the  herdsman-poet's  work.  It  is  a  metri- 
cal paraphrase  of  parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  an- 
swers in  a  measure  to  the  description  given  by  Bede. 

The  next  and  greatest  of  the  known  poets  among  the 
northern  English  was  Cynewulf,  who  is  thought  to  have 
lived  in  the  eighth  century,  but  who  may  belong  to  a 


32         BRITAIN    AND    EARLY    ENGLAND.  [7th-8th  Cent. 

later  time.      Four  poems   have  been  found  which  have 
his  name   siofned  to  them  in  runic   letters,  — 

Cynewixlf.  *  ' 

that  is,  letters  of  the  old  Scandinavian  alpha- 
bet, —  and  others  are  ascribed  to  him,  all  of  them  full  of 
a  poetical  feeling  that  is  remarkably  spiritual  and  fine  for 
so  rude  an  age.^ 

Of  plain  prose-writing  in  the  early  English  language 
there  is  nothing  extant  that  belongs  to  any  time  before 
King  Alfred  the  Great,  unless  it  may  be  some  entries  in 
the  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  the  date  of  the  writing  of 
which,  by  successive  monks,  in  different  monasteries,  is 
The  vener-  ^^^t  known.  Bcdc,  —  the  Venerable  Bede,  — 
abieBede.    fc^j-^gj-   ^f   ^]^g   learned    literature   of    England, 

whose  birth  was  in  67^2^  and  his  death  in  735,  had  just 
finished  an  English  translation  of  the  Gospel  of  St. 
John  when  he  died,  and  had  probably  done  other  writing 
in  his  native  tongue,  but  it  is  lost.  Only  a  few  of  many 
books  which  he  wrote  in  Latin  have  been  spared  ;  but 
one  of  those,  the  "  Ecclesiastical  History  of  England," 
is  priceless  in  its  worth. 

The  Saxons  of  the  south  of  England  appear  to  have 
contributed  little  to  the  earliest  English  literature,  but 
Literature  they  evidently  valued  what  came  to  them  from 
sou?hof  Northumbria ;  for  nearly  all  of  it  that  we 
England.  j^q^  j:)ossess  was  savcd  in  their  dialect  when 
the  northern  monasteries  were  destroyed  by  the  Danes, 
as  will  presently  be  told.  One  scholar  and  poet  of  the 
south,  Aldhelm  or  Ealdhelm,   Bishop  of  Sherborne,  ob- 

1  Excepting  Beowulf  and  Caedmon's  verse,  ahnost  all  that  has 
been  preserved  of  the  earliest  English  poetry  is  in  two  ancient 
manuscript  collections,  —  one  known  as  The  Exeter  Book,  found  in 
the  library  of  Exeter  Cathedral,  to  which  it  was  presented  by  a 
bishop  Leofric  in  the  eleventh  century;  and  the  other  found  far 
away  from  Ene^land,  in  a  monastery  at  Vercelli,  Italy,  and  known 
as  The  VercjUi  Book. 


S29l  ENGLISH    SETTLEMENT.  33 

tained  fame  in  the  seventh  century,  but  nothing  of  his 
EngHsh  verse  has  been  preserved. 

16.  Union  of  the  English  Kingdoms.  Throughout 
the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  the  kings  of  Mercia, 
Wessex,  and  Northumberland  struggled  with  each  other 
for  supremacy.  The  contest  was  practically  ended  about 
829,  by  a  West  Saxon  king  named  Egbert,  who  joined 
Sussex,  Essex,  and  Kent  to  his  own  kingdom,  and  was 
acknowledged  as  overlord  by  the  under-kings  Egbert's 
of  Mercia,  East  Anglia,  and  Northumbria,  and  ^"^gdom. 
by  the  British  princes  of  Wales.  The  political  union  of 
the  English,  thus  begun,  was  greatly  helped  by  an  or- 
ganization of  the  Christian  church  into  one  body,  under 
the  orderly  rule  of  Rome,  which  Theodore  of  Tarsus,  a 
Greek  monk,  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  669, 
succeeded  in  bringing  about. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

7.    The  Conquest. 
Topics. 

1.  Teutons  as  allies  of  the  Britons. 

2.  Home  of  the  Engles,  Saxons,  and  Jutes. 

3.  A  Jutish  long  ship. 

4.  Conquests  by  each  of  the  three  tribes. 

5.  Division  of  England  among  the  invaders. 
References. —  Gardiner,  i.  26-29.     Origin  of  the  Enghsh  :  Gar- 
diner, i.  24;  Green,  i.  1-5;  Bright,  i.  i;  Taswell-Langmead,  1-8. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Discuss  the  right  of  the  Anglo-Sax- 
ons to  the  lands  they  took,  and  illustrate  from  our  own  history. 
(2.)  Compare  the  Anglo-Saxon  with  the  Roman  occupation  of 
Britain.  (3.)  By  the  termination  "  ton,"  -'  ham,"  "  stead,"  '•  wick," 
and  "borough,"  point  out  Anglo-Saxon  places.  (4.)  Where  are 
Thanet  and  Ebbsfleet  ? 

8.  The  Extinction  of  Christianity  and  of  Roman 

Civilization. 
Topics. 

I.   Social  state  of  the  new-comers. 


34    THE  ENGLISH  CONQUEST  AND  SETTLEMENT. 

2.  Destruction  they  wrought  in  England. 

3.  Derivation  of  "Wales." 

References.  —  Guest,  ch.  v. ;  Freeman,  Norman  Conq.,  i.  ch.  ii. ; 
Pearson,  i.  ch.  i. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  are  the  characteristics  of  a 
people  in  the  savage  stage  ?  (2.)  In  the  barbarous  stage  ?  (3.) 
What  is  meant  by  their  being  pagan  ?  (4.)  What  was  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Teutons  ?  (5.)  What  names  in  e very-day  use  have 
we  from  the  names  of  their  gods  ?  (Guest,  42,  43.)  (6.)  What 
religion  did  they  find  in  England  ?    (7.)  Brought  there  by  whom  ? 

9.  The  Primitive  Form  of  English  Society. 

Topics. 

1.  Character  of  German  tribes. 

2.  Theows,  ceorls,  and  eorls. 

3.  Beginning  of  royalty. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  29-31.  Trade,  industry,  social  life 
and  manners  :  Gardiner,  i.  7^-77  ;  P>right,  i.  28-39;  Green,  M.  E., 
164-173  ;  Pearson,  i.  ch.  vii.  ;  Traill,  i.  125-129,  201-228.  Eng- 
lish in  their  old  home  :  Gardiner,  i.  29-34 ;  Green,  1-5  ;  Green, 
H.  E.  P.,  i.  8-16;  Green,  M.  E.,  166-174;  Ransome,  2-4 ;  Stubbs, 
C.  H.,  i.  ch.  iii. ;  H.  Taylor,  i,  ch.  ii. ;  Tacitus'  Agricola,  book  v., 
Germania. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  sort  of  life  did  the  Teutons 
follow  ?  (2.)  How  well  was  England  suited  to  their  needs  ?  (3.) 
What  natural  sources  of  wealth  did  they  find  ?  (4.)  Where  did 
they  get  tin  ?  (5.)  What  other  metal  did  they  need  to  make 
bronze  weapons  ? 

10.  The  Seed-Planting  of  Free  Institutions. 
Topics. 

1.  Townships,  hundreds,  and  shires. 

2.  Tun-moot,  hundred-moot,  folk-moot. 

3.  The  Fyrd. 

References. —  Gardiner,  i.  31-33.  English  township:  Green,  3, 
4;  Gardiner,  i.  31  ;  Green,  M.  E.,  166-174;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  82- 
90;  H.  Taylor,  i.  12;  Taswell-Langmead,  16.  Moots:  Gardiner, 
i-  3i-33>  45»  72-74,  113;  Bright,  i.  31-35;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  102- 
108,  119-140;  Taswell-Langmead,  30-42;  H.  Taylor,  i.  12,  143- 
148;  Ransome,  6-8;  Traill,  i.  136-138;  Green,  60-61,  175-176. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  was  the  head  man  of  a 
shire  called  ?     (2.)  What  is  the  modern  title  derived  from  this  ? 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.        35 

(3.)  Are  the  duties  of  this  office  the  same  to-day  as  then  ?  {4.) 
What  is  a  moot-court  of  the  present  day  ?  (5.)  What  is  a  mooted 
question?  (6.)  Look  up  the  "  Chiltern  Hundreds"  and  show  of 
what  Anglo-Saxon  division  they  are  a  survival.  (7.)  Of  what 
service  are  they  to-day  ? 

11.  Losses  in  Freedora. 
Topics. 

1.  Loss  of  land  among  freemen. 

2.  Manors. 

3.  Parish  vestry-meetings  of  present  day. 
Reference.  —  Montague,  19,  20. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  In  what  particulars  does  land  fur- 
nish the  means  of  keeping  a  man  independent  .^  (2.)  To  what 
two  pursuits  was  land  in  those  days  devoted  ?  (3.)  How  impor- 
tant are  those  pursuits  in  any  stage  of  society  ?  (4.)  If  a  man 
lost  his  land,  what  other  means  of  livelihood  had  he.^  (5.)  Why 
did  this  entail  a  loss  of  freedom  ?  (6.)  Are  men  of  the  present 
day  who  are  without  land  necessarily  dependent  ?  (7.)  What 
made  the  difference  in  the  lot  of  landless  men  at  that  time  ? 

12.  The  Growth  of  an  Aristocracy. 
Topics. 

1.  Early  distinctions  in  rank,  —  atheling,  gesiths,  thanes, 

2.  Changes  in  landholding. 

3.  Measurement  of  rank. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  29-32. 

Research  Questions,  —  (i.)  What  were  the  duties  of  the  "ge- 
siths ?  "  (Gardiner,  i.  30.)  (2.)  What  play  of  Shakespeare  shows 
the  character  of  "  thanes "  and  how  they  acquired  lands  and 
titles  or  lost  them  ?  (3.)  Why  was  a  thane  more  apt  to  be  enriched 
than  any  other  of  the  king's  friends.'*  (4.)  What  is  meant  by 
"  sac  and  soc  "  ?  (5.)  What  portion  of  the  country  did  an  earl 
rule  in  early  days  ?  (6.)  Is  there  a  higher  rank  in  the  English 
nobility  than  earl  now?  (7.)  If  so,  what  is  it  and  by  whom  was 
it  introduced.  (8.)  Name  as  many  of  the  titles  of  the  English 
nobility  as  you  can  and  describe  the  rank  that  pertains  to  each. 

13.  The  Witenagemot. 
Topics. 

1.  Its  make-up. 

2.  Its  function. 
Reference.  —  Ransome,  6-9. 


36    THE  ENCxLISH  CONQUEST  AND  SETTLEMENT. 

Research  Question.  —  The  Witenagemot  is  the  foreshadowing 
of  what  body  in  the  English  government  of  the  present  time  ? 

14.  Conversion  of  the  English. 
Topics. 

1.  Continued  existence  of  Christianity. 

2.  Pope  Gregory  and  the  Engles. 

3.  Estabhshment  and  early  spread  of  Christianity. 

4.  The  thane's  parable. 

5.  Reaction  against  Christianity. 

6.  Irish  missionaries. 

References.  —  Montague,  4,  5.  Pope  Gregory  and  Augustine : 
Green,  18,  19;  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History,  book  i.  ch.  xxiii.  ; 
Colby,  14-16;  Green,  H.  E.  P.,  i.  36-42;  Green,  M.  E.,  212-218; 
Gardiner,  i.  38-41  ;  Guest,  53-59;  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  438; 
Lappenberg,  i.  1 71-180  ;  Pearson,  i.  298-302  ;  Freeman,  O.  E.  H., 
42-48.  Conversion  of  King  Edwin:  Bede,  E.  H.,  book  ii.  chs. 
xiii.  and  xiv. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Describe  the  rise  of  Canterbury  as 
a  centre  of  the  Christian  religion  and  its  growth  into  an  arch- 
bishopriCo  (Gardiner,  i.  38-40.)  (2.)  What  was  the  famous  Irish 
monastery  whence  missionaries  came  into  England  ?  (Gardiner, 
i.  47.)  (3.)  Point  out  on  the  map  the  two  directions  from  which 
Christianity  entered  England  after  the  English  conquest. 

15.    Christian  Culture.  — Early  Literature. 
Topics. 

1.  Influence  of  the  church  in  the  north. 

2.  Genius  of  the  Engles  for  literature. 

3.  Poetry  of  the  period. 

4.  Celtic  influence. 

5.  Casdmon  and  Cynewulf. 

6.  Prose  writings. 

7.  Literature  in  the  south  of  England. 

References.  —  Early  literature  :  Green,  25-29.  Csdmon  :  Bede, 
E.  H.,  book  iv.  ch.  xxiv. ;  Green,  27-29;  Gardiner,  i.  52;  Green, 
H.  E.  P.,  i.  52;  Green,  M.  E.,  357-358;  Pearson,  i.  298-301; 
Freeman,  O.  E.  H.,  74. 

16.  Union  of  the  English  Kingdoms. 
Topics. 

1.  Supremacy  of  Egbert  and  the  West  Saxons. 

2.  Influence  of  the  church. 


CHAPTER    HI. 

THE    INTRUSION    OF    THE    DANES. 
787-1066. 

17.  Appearance  of  the  Vikings.  Among  the  Eng- 
Hsh  themselves,  the  supremacy  that  Egbert  had  won  for 
the  West  Saxon  kings  was  seriously  disputed  no  more. 
But  now  there  broke  upon  them  a  storm  of  foreign  in- 
vasion which  undid  for  a  hundred  years  the  work  of 
consolidation  that  had  been  going  on. 

A  fresh  outswarming  of  barbaric  people  from  the 
Baltic  regions  of  northern  Europe  had  occurred.  Once 
more  the  Danish  peninsula  was  sending  out  fleets  of  pirat- 
ical rovers,  and  other  fleets  from  Norway  and  Sweden  fol- 
lowed in  their  wake.  They  called  themselves  "vikings," 
not  as  a  regal  title,  but  with  reference  to  the  "  vicks,"  or 
creeks,  from  which  they  put  to  sea.  The  expeditions  of 
the  vikings  w^ere  directed  on  two  lines.  One,  westward, 
carried  them  to  the  Shetland  and  Orkney  islands,  to 
the  Hebrides,  to  the  western  coast  of  Scotland  and 
the  eastern  coast  of  Ireland  ;  or  to  the  Earoe  Islands, 
Iceland,  Greenland,  and  finally  to  America,  as  is  now 
well  known.  On  the  other  line,  southward,  their  expedi- 
tions struck  England,  and  also  ravaged  the  shores  of  the 
continent,  from  the  Netherlands  to  Spain. 

Between  the   freebooters  who  sailed  from    Denmark 
and  the  Baltic  islands  and  those  who  went  from  j^^j^jg  ^^ 
Norway  or  Sweden,  little  distinction  was  made  *^e  Danes, 
in  the    chronicles    of    the    time.      To   the    Eranks    and 


38 


BRITAIN  AND    EARLY   ENGLAND. 


[787-868 


other  people  on 
the  continent  they 
were  generally 
known  as  North- 
men ;  to  the  Eng- 
lish they  were  com- 
monly all  Danes. 
It  is  suiDposed  that 
the  greater  part  of 
the  vikings  who 
ravaged  and  in- 
vaded England 
were  Danes  in  fact, 
and  we  shall  speak 
of  them  by  that 
name.  They  were 
still  "  heathen 

men,"  as  the  Eng- 
lish called  them, 
and  the  wealth 
of  the  Christian 
monasteries  and 
churches,  in  Ire- 
land and  England,  made  those  sacred  places  the  objects 
of  their  most  constant  attack. 

For  three  quarters  of  a  century  after  the  raids  of  the 

Danes  began,  they  were  kept  from  gaining  any  foothold 

on  English  soil.      Egbert  and  his  son  Ethelwulf  fought 

them  off  with  success.     Four  sons  of  Ethelwulf 

Eclipse  of  ^     .    ,  .         ,  -  ,  ^    . 

Christian  succeedcd  him,  m  turn,  on  the  throne,  and  in 
the  reign  of  Ethelred,  the  third  of  those  val- 
iant brothers,  the  calamitous  period  of  Danish  invasion 
began.  East  Anglia  and  all  the  southern  part  of  North- 
umbria  were  overwhelmed   (866-868).     Churches,  mon- 


THE   COURSE    OF   THE   VIKING    EXPEDITIONS. 


871-876]       THE    INTRUSION    OF   THE    DANES. 


39 


asteries,  schools,  libraries  disappeared  ;  the  glorious  light 
of  learning  and  letters  which  had  shone  from  the  An- 
srlian  kincfdom  in  the  north  went  out,  and  utter  darkness 
fell  again  upon  the  unfortunate  land. 

18.  Alfred  the  Great.  In  871,  Ethelred  died  from  a 
wound  received  in  battle  with  the  Danes,  and  Alfred,  the 
last  of  Ethel wulf's  four  sons,  known  to  future  times  as 


IRON    SWORDS    OF    THE    VIKINGSo 


Alfred  the  Great,  stepped  into  his  place,  and  took  up 
what  seemed  to  be  the  hopeless  task  of  England's  de- 
fence. He  was  then  but  twenty-two  years  of  age.  He 
had  been  carefully  educated,  and  had  visited  Rome  in  his 
youth. 

In  the  first  year  of  his  reign,  Alfred  was  forced,  by 
repeated  defeats,  to  buy  a  truce  from  the  Danes,  which 
saved  Wessex  from  their  ravages  for  a  considerable  time. 
During  that  time  they  subjugated  Mercia  completely, 
overran  Bernicia,  Cumbria,  and  Strathclyde,  and  took  a 
piece  of  territory  from  the  Scots.  Then,  in  8y6,  they 
returned  to  the  attack  on  Wessex.  Alfred,  who  had  put 
a  fleet  of  warships  afloat,  resisted  them  at  sea  and  on 


40  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.        [876-S7S 

land ;  but  the  forces  against  him  were  too  strong.  At 
the  end  of  two  years  the  Danes  were  nearly  masters  of 
the  country.  "  Many  of  the  people,"  says  the  Chroni- 
cle, "they  drove  beyond  sea,  and  of  the  remainder  the 
greater  part  they  subdued  and  forced  to  obey  them,  except 
King  Alfred  ;  and  he,  with  a  small  band,  with  difficulty 
retreated  to  the  woods  and  to  the  fastnesses  of  the 
moors." 

It  was  in  Selwood  Forest,  on  the  edge  of  Somerset, 
that  the  young  king  took  refuge,  with  his  family  and  a 
few  faithful  men.  He  was  hidden  there  through  the 
early  months  of  SyS,  not  in  idleness,  we  may  be  sure, 
but  planning  and  preparing  for  new  efforts  to  redeem  the 
stricken  land.  Many  tales  of  adventures  that  befel  him 
in  the  forest  were  told  in  after  times,  among  them  that 

one  of  the  kin^  and   the  cakes  in  the  herds- 

-^^^ed^^  >      1  1111 

the  herds-     man  s    hut,    which    has    been    repeated    many 

man's  hut.       .  ,        ,  .   ,      .  .  .,  ,  . 

times,  and  which  is  quite  possibly  true.  Ac- 
cording to  the  story,  the  king  took  shelter  one  day  in 
the  hut  of  a  herdsman,  whose  wife  knew  him  not.  She, 
baking  cakes  at  the  fire  by  which  he  sat,  bade  him  watch 
them  and  turn  them,  while  she  went  to  other  tasks ;  but 
his  thoughts  wandered,  the  cakes  were  burned,  and  he 
received  a  rough  scolding  for  his  neglect. 

WTien  spring  came,  Alfred  and  his  followers  built  a 
fortified  camp  on  a  small  island  of  rising  ground  in  the 
midst  of  a  great  marsh   near  Taunton.     This  was  after- 
wards called  "the  athelin2:'s  eicj,"  or  island,  but 

Athelney.  o  o'  ' 

careless  tongues  corrupted  the  name  to  "  Athel- 
ney," and  so  it  remains.  In  the  sheltered  camp  at  Athel- 
ney, Alfred  then  began  to  bring  together  such  forces  as 
he  could  rally  from  the  neighboring  country,  and  to 
make  forays  upon  the  Danes.  By  the  middle  of  May  he 
was   ready  to   lead  an  army  against  them,  and  in  one 


S78-901]       THE    INTRUSION    OF   THE    DANES. 


41 


remarkable  campaign  he  rescued  his  West  Saxon  king- 
dom. He  routed  the  inwaders  at  Ethandun,  besieged 
them  in  their  camp,  forced  them  to  surrender,  extorted 
from  them  a  solemn  treaty,  known  as  the  Peace  of  Wed- 
more,  and  imposed  Christian  baptism  on  their  chief. 

The  tide  was  turned  by  this  great  success.     Wessex 
was  rescued  immediately  ;  England  was  saved  in  the  end. 
Half  of  it,  by  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  was  given  up  to  the 
Danes,  and  thereafter  known  as  the  Danelaw  The  Dane- 
(under  the  law  of  the  Danes)  ;  the  other  half  ^^*- 
was  left  in  peace  to  grow  strong  and  united,  and  to  be 
able  in  time  to  rule  the  whole.     The  Danes  withdrew 
from   the   entire    re- 
gion   south    of    the 
Thames     and     west 
of  the    old   Watling 
Street    road.       This 
secured  to  Alfred  a 
kincfdom  which  com- 
prised  the  whole  of 
Wessex,  with  Kent, 
Sussex,  and  the  west- 
ern part  of  Mercia  ; 
and  eight  years  later 
he  added  what  is  now 
the   county  of   Mid- 
dlesex, including  the 
city    of    Eondon,    to 
his  realm,  ai.fkkd  the  great. 

The  departing  en- 
emy  left   ruin,   poverty,   and   disorder   behind.       It  was 
Alfred's  task  to  clear  the  wreckage  from  his  country  ; 
to  revive  hope  and  confidence  ;  to  restore  authority  to 
government  and  force  to  law  ;  to  organize  an  effective 


42  BRITAIN   AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.         [878-901 

system  of  military  and  naval  defence  ;  and,  above  all,  to 
bring  new  and  greater  influences  of  religion  and  educa- 

Aifredas  ^^^^  ^^  ^^^^  °^^  ^^^  pcoplc.  All  thesc  things 
a  states-  ^iQ  did,  with  a  wisdom,  a  faithfulness,  and  a 
teacher.  power  of  example  that  have  rarely  been  equalled 
in  the  world.  In  his  own  person  he  was  the  noblest 
teacher  that  any  nation  ever  had.  His  great  labors  and 
cares  of  state  did  not  keep  him  from  hard  studies,  pur- 
sued for  the  sake  of  knowledge  that  he  could  give  to  his 
people.  He  toiled  at  translations  from  the  Latin  into 
the  English  tongue,  so  that  they  might  read  Bede's  his- 
tory of  their  own  land,  and  other  instructive  books.  He 
gathered  and  preserved  the  materials  of  the  precious  old 
Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  from  which  we  have  been  quot- 
ing, and  it  is  thought  that  he  wrote  in  it  the  annals  of 
his  own  time.  The  noble  stream  of  English  prose  litera- 
ture starts  from  Alfred's  pen. 

That  Alfred  ranks  above  all  other  great  Englishmen 
in  public  life  is  beyond  dispute.  Perhaps  his  place  on 
the  roll  of  fame  is  even  higher  than  that.  Professor 
Freeman,  one  of  the  foremost  of  historians,  goes  so  far 
Alfred's  ^.s  to  Say :  "  yElfred  ...  is  the  most  perfect 
greatness,  character  in  history.  .  .  .  No  other  man  on  re- 
cord has  ever  so  thoroughly  united  all  the  virtues  both 
of  the  ruler  and  of  the  private  man.  .  .  .  The  virtue  of 
Alfred,  like  the  virtue  of  Washington,  consisted  in  no 
marvellous  displays  of  superhuman  genius,  but  in  the 
simple,  straightforward  discharge  of  the  duty  of  the  mo- 
ment. But  Washington,  soldier,  statesman,  and  patriot, 
like  Alfred,  has  no  claim  to  yElf red's  two  other  charac- 
ters of  saint  and  scholar."  ^  This  is  a  judgment  which 
all  may  not  accept,  but  none  will  find  it  easy  to  disprove. 

King  Alfred's  son,  Edward  (called  ''the  Elder  "),  who 

^  Freeman's  Norman  Conquest^  ch.  ii. 


ALFRED'S  BRITAIN 

WITH 
HTSTORK  AL  DKT.UL 


90I-975]      THE    INTRUSION    OF    THE    DANES.  43 

succeeded  him  in  901,  and  three  vaHant  grandsons,  who 
came  after,  were  able,  in  the  fifty-four  years  of  their  suc- 
cessive reigns,  to  accompUsh  the  complete  subjugation  of 
the  Danelaw,  and  to  reestablish  the  sovereignty  of  their 
house  over  the  whole  English  land.  Under  Edgar,  a 
great-grandson  of  Alfred,  the  power  of  the  West  Edgar's 
Saxon  kings  reached  its  height,  and  the  nation  ^^^^^^• 
rejoiced  in  a  singularly  good  government  and  in  the 
blessings  of  peace.  Edgar  was  ably  served  by  a  great 
minister,  the  monk  Dunstan,  who  became  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  and  who  revived  Alfred's  educational 
work. 

19.  Effects  of  the  Danish  Struggle.  England  was 
little  affected  by  anything  which  the  Danes  brought  in  ; 
since  the  tw^o  peoples  were  substantially  of  one  blood, 
and  their  institutions,  customs,  character,  and  language 
were  closely  alike.  But  the  framework  of  English  society 
was  seriously  changed,  we  may  be  sure,  by  the  long  conflict 
which  the  Danish  intrusion  brought  about.  The  constant 
exercise  of  military  power,  in  so  long  a  period  of  internal 
war,  transformed  it,  inevitably,  into  political  and  social 
power.  The  warrior  order  of  thanes  gained  ascendency 
more  rapidly  than  before.  Increasing  numbers  of  free- 
men were  borne  down  by  the  afflictions  of  war,  to  become 
debtors,  and  therefore  slaves  ;  to  become  landless,  and 
therefore  dependent  ;  to  be  put  in  peril,  and  therefore 
impelled  to  seek  the  protection  of  a  lord.  All  the  influ- 
ences that  had  been  hostile  to  the  primitive  democracy 
of  the  English  people,  from  the  beginning  of  their  settle- 
ment in  Britain,  were  undoubtedly  heightened  by  their 
long  conflict  with  the  Danes. 

20.  Arts,  and  Conditions  of  Life.  As  a  general  fact, 
it  is  quite  certain  that  the  conditions  of  life,  among  Eng- 
lish as  w^ell  as  Danes,  were  still  very  rude ;  but  little  is 


44 


BRITAIN  AND  EARLY  ENGLAND,  [ioth  Cent. 


known  in  detail  of  what  they  really  were.  It  is  a  van- 
ished life.  The  houses  that  sheltered  it  and  the  fur- 
nishings of  the  houses  have  disappeared,  and  scarcely 
anything  of  even  pictorial  representation  remains. 

The  art  of  brickmaking,  which  the  Romans  gave  to 
Britain,  had  been  lost.  Even  in  church-buildino:  the  use 
of  Stone  was  evidently  rare.  In  the  century  which  fol- 
lowed Edgar's  reign,  much  advance  in  church  architec- 
ture appears  to  have  been  made ;  but  few  examples  of 


AN    EARLY    ENGLISH    CHURCH.l 


the  work  of  even  that  period  have  survived.     Wood  was 
the  common  material  of  houses  for  the  rich  and 

Buildings.  n  i  ^  ^  1  r     1 

well-to-do  ;  clay,  the  commoner  substance  or  the 
huts  of  the  poor.  In  neither  the  lord's  hall  nor  the 
peasant's  hut  was  a  chimney  to  be  found  until  centuries 

1  The  church  of  St.  Lawrence,  at  Bradford-on-Avon,  Wiltshire, 
possibly  built  by  Bishop  Aldhelm,  a  famous  scholar,  architect,  and 
man  of  letters  of  the  seventh  century ;  pronounced  by  Professor 
Freeman  to  be  "  the  one  perfect  surviving  Old-English  Church  in 
the  land." 


iothCent.]  the   intrusion    OF  THE  DANES.  45 

after  these  primitive  days.  The  means  of  lighting  were 
a  smoking  torch,  or,  sometimes,  a  burning  wick  bedded 
in  a  kunp  of  fat,  on  a  pointed  stick.  King  Alfred  must 
have  made  better  candles,  however,  for  he  is  said  to  have 
devised  a  mode  of  keeping  time  by  burning  them  in 
lanterns  marked  for  the  hours. 

The  specimens  of  Anglo-Saxon  pottery  that  have  been 
found  are  said  to  be  mostly  rude  ;  in  the  eighth  century, 
the  English  were  still  sending  to  France  for  The  fine 
glass  ;  yet,  in  certain  finer  arts,  such  as  jewelry  ^^*^^- 
work,  embroidery,  and  the  illumination  of  manuscripts, 
the  native  artists  and  workmen  appear  to  have  been 
notable  in  skill. 

Spinning  and  weaving  were  household  industries,  even 
in  the  palaces  of  the  kings.  Alfred's  mother  is  praised 
for  her  skill  in  weaving,  and  Edward  the  Elder  Household 
is  said  to  have  ''  sette  his  sons  to  scole  and  his  industries, 
daughters  he  sette  to  wool  werke."  But  the  English 
stayed  far  behind  their  Dutch  and  Flemish  neighbors 
for  many  centuries  in  the  arts  of  weaving  and  dyeing, 
though  the  wool  of  their  sheep  was  the  best  in  Europe, 
and  so  valued,  even  in  the  eighth  century,  that  the 
Emperor  Charlemagne  exempted  traders  in  it  from  cap- 
ture in  war. 

21.  Scotland.  It  was  at  the  time  of  King  Edgar  that 
a  kingdom  in  the  north  of  the  British  island,  called  Scot- 
land in  later  times,  grew  to  about  its  final  extent.  It 
had  been  known  once  as  the  Kingdom  of  Scone,  then  as 
the  Kingdom  of  Alban,  and  finally  as  the  Kingdom  of 
the  Scots.  Part  of  the  old  Bernician  kingdom,  wholly 
English  in  its  population  (the  district  called  Lothian  in 
modern  times),  was  granted  by  the  English  King  Edgar 
to  the  Scots,  giving  them  Edinburgh  for  their  future 
capital  town. 


46  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.       [975-1042 

22.  Renewed  Attacks  and  Complete  Conquest  by 
the  Danes.  The  brief  interval  of  peace  and  prosperity 
in  England  ended  at  Edgar's  death  (975),  and  a  miserable 
period  came  after.  A  new  series  of  Danish  invasions 
began,  ending  in  a  complete  conquest  of  the  country 
by  Sweyn,  King  of  Denmark,  in  1013,  when  Ethelred, 
the  EngUsh  king,  fled  to  Normandy,  and  Sweyn  seized 
his  throne.  Sweyn  died  in  the  next  year,  and  one  of  his 
sons  named  Cnut  (called  Canute  by  the  English)  suc- 
ceeded him,  after  some  struggle  with  Ethelred,  who  re- 
turned, and  with  Ethelred' s  eldest  son,  Edmund,  called 
"  Ironside,"  because  of  his  daring  and  strength.  Both 
Ethelred  and  Edmund  soon  died,  and  all  England  sub- 
mitted to  Canute,  who  jDroved  to  be  a  great  and  much- 
loved  king,  though  his  reign  was  barbarously  begun. 

His  whole  character  appears  to  have   undergone   an 

extraordinary  change.     He   shed   his  barbarism   like  a 

srarment  ;    he   became  merciful,  mao^nanimous, 

Canute.  o  '  '  &  ' 

careful  of  the  welfare  of  his  people,  —  a  Chris- 
tian statesman  and  a  patriot  king,  who  won  the  affection 
of  his  English  subjects  more  than  any,  after  Alfred,  of 
their  own  royal  race.  He  placed  Englishmen  rather 
than  Danes  in  the  offices  of  state,  and  gave  his  confi- 
dence especially  to  a  West  Saxon  thane  named  Godwin, 
whom  he  made  ealdorman,  or  earl,  as  the  title  now 
became,  of  Wessex,  and  whom  he  trusted  with  the 
government  of  the  kingdom  when  he  himself  visited  his 
Danish  realm. 

23.  The  Last  English  Kings.  After  Canute  died, 
in  1035,  two  of  his  sons  reigned  briefly,  and  then  (1042) 
the  crown  came  back  to  the  family  of  Ethelred,  being 
given  to  his  younger  son  Edward,  known  afterwards  as 
"  the  Confessor,"  who  had  been  reared  and  sheltered  in 
Normandy  during  the  reign  of  Canute. 


io66] 


THE    INTRUSION    OF   THE    DANES. 


47 


The  French  district  called  Normandy,  on  the  lower 
waters  of  the  Seine,  had  received  that  name  in  the  previ- 
ous century,  when  it  was  seized  by  one  of  the  hosts  of 
vikings,  or  Northmen,  described  above.  It  was  formally 
ceded  as  a  duchy  in  911  to  their  chief,  Rolf 
(Rollo  in  the  Latin  form  of  the  name  and  Rou 
in  the  French  form),  and,  from  being  known  as  the  Land 
of  the  Northmen,  came  to  be  called  Normandy  and  its 
people  Normans. 

Edward  the  Confessor  was  a  man  of  such  gentleness 


Normandy. 


WESTMINSTER    ABBEY    AS    REPRESENTED    ON    THE    BAYEUX    TAPESTRY.l 


Harold. 


and  goodness  that  after  his  death  he  was  counted  among 

the  saints  ;  but  he  was  better  fitted  to  be  a  monk  than  a 

king.     The  ruling  hand  in  his  government  during  most 

of  the  reign  was  that  of  Canute's  minister,  the 

great  Earl  Godwin  ;  and  Godwin's  power,  when 

he  died,  was  transmitted  to  Harold,  his   son.     At  the 

1  The  Bayeux  Tapestry,  preserved  in  the  Library  at  Bayeux, 
France,  is  believed  to  have  been  wrought  by  William  the  Con- 
queror's wife,  Queen  Matilda,  and  her  maids,  to  picture  scenes  of 
the  Norman  Conquest. 


48  BRITAIN    AND    EARLY   ENGLAND.  [1066 

death  (January,  1066)  of  King  Edward,  who  had  no  chil- 
dren, the  nearest  heir  to  the  crown  was  a  cliild,  a  grand- 
son of  Edmund  Ironside,  born  in  exile,  in  Hungary,  and 
those  circumstances  made  it  easy  to  turn  men's  thoughts 
toward  the  crowning  of  the  mighty  Earl  Harold,  whose 
family,  for  two  generations,  had  held  an  almost  royal 
rank. 

That,  in  fact,  is  what  came  to  pass.  Harold  was  duly 
elected  king  by  the  national  Witenagemot,  and  crowned 
in  the  abbey  church  of  Westminster,  which  the  late  king 
had  built  and  in  which  his  body  was  laid.  But  no  sooner 
had  the  news  of  Harold's  election  gone  abroad  than  a 
formidable  disputant  appeared,  in  the  person  of 

William  of  ^  .  . 

Normandy  the  Dukc  of  Normaudy,  who  claimed  that  King 
English  Edward  had  promised  him  the  English  crown, 
and  that  Harold,  being  once  a  shipwrecked  cap- 
tive in  Normandy,  had  then  solemnly  sworn  fealty  to 
him,  Duke  William,  as  Edward's  heir.  On  those  grounds 
he  denied  the  validity  of  the  election,  and  made  prepara- 
tions to  drive  Harold  from  the  throne. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

17.  Appearance  of  the  Vikings. 

Topics. 

1.  A  fresh  invasion. 

2.  Origin  of  the  name  "  viking." 

3.  Two  lines  of  their  expeditions, 

4.  Raids  of  the  Danes  upon  England. 

5.  Edipse  of  Christian  hght. 
Reference.  —  Green,  44-48. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  In  what  important  point  did  the 
Danes  and  English  differ.'*  (2.)  What  danger  to  the  church 
from  the  invasion  ?  (3.)  To  the  cause  of  education  1  (4.)  Of 
what  kind  were  the  books  of  the  period  .''  (5.)  What  is  meant 
by  ihuminated  books  ?  (6.)  How  did  Latin  come  to  be  used  in 
Britain  and  akso  in  Gaul  and  other  provinces  on  the  continent? 
(7.)  Why  were  books  written  in  it?     (8.)  By  means  of  the  termi- 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.        49 

nation  "  by  "  in  the  names  of  their  cities,  trace  the  extent  of  the 
Danish  conquest.  (9.)  What  good  traits  of  the  people  would 
an  invasion  bring  out? 

18.  Alfred  the  Great. 
Topics. 

1.  Alfred's  truce. 

2.  His  flight. 

3.  Alfred  in  the  herdsman's  hut. 

4.  Collection  of  an  army  at  Athelney. 

5.  Battle  of  Ethandun. 

6.  Division  of  England  between  Danes  and  Saxons. 

7.  Alfred  as  a  statesman  and  teacher. 

8.  Alfred's  greatness. 

9.  The  work  of  Alfred's  successors. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  58-61 ;  Bright,  i.  6-10 ;  Green,  47-53  ; 
Ransome,  11,  13,  16;  Pearson,  i.  163-181  ;  Colby,  19-22;  Pauli's 
Life;  Hughes'  Life;  Turner's  Anglo-Saxons,  vols.  i.  and  ii.  ; 
Anglo-Saxon  Chron.,  349-366. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Point  out  on  the  map  the  recon- 
quest  of  England  as  achieved  by  Alfred.  (2.)  What  did  they 
call  the  part  which  was  given  over  to  the  Danes  ?  (3.)  What 
does  the  term  mean  ?  (Gardiner,  i.  59.)  (4.)  When  did  they 
begin  to  bribe  the  Danes?  (Gardiner,  i,  79.J  (5.)  Was  this  a 
wise  measure?  Give  reasons  for  your  opinion.  (6.)  Name  the 
great  churchman  of  this  period,  outline  his  career,  and  show 
some  of  the  things  he  did  for  the  church.    (Gardiner,  i.  65,  67,  68.) 

19.  Effects  of  the  Danish  Struggle. 
Topics. 

1.  Kinship  of  English  and  Danes. 

2.  Effect  of  their  wars  on  English  society. 

Research' Questions.  —  (i.)  What  good  was  land  in  such  a  time 
as  this  if  its  owner  could  not  defend  it?  (2.)  What  sort  of  men 
would  be  able  to  defend  their  land  ?  (3.)  To  whom,  then,  would 
the  king  naturally  distribute  land  ?  (4.)  How  did  the  wars  affect 
great  numbers  of  less  warlike  men  ?  (5.)  W^hat  would  they  have 
to  do  for  their  own  protection  ?  (6.)  This  method  of  land  dis- 
tribution and  consequent  vassalage  is  the  beginning  in  England 
of  what  system  of  landholding  ?  (7.)  Did  this  system  obtain  at 
the  same  time  on  the  continent? 


50      THE  INTRUSION  OF  THE  DANES. 

20.  Arts,  and  Conditions  of  Life. 
Topics.  , 

1.  Conditions  of  life. 

2.  Building  material  and  house  comforts. 

3.  Arts  and  manufactures. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  7S-77' 

21.  Scotland. 
Topics. 

1.  Beginning  of  the  kingdom. 

2.  Acquisition  of  Edinburgh. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  From  its  name,  what  tribe  had  the 
most  to  do  in  uniting  Scotland  1  (2.)  What  was  their  kinship 
with  the  Irish  ?  (Gardiner,  i.  63.)  (3.)  Where  is  Edinburgh  } 
(4.)  How  does  it  rank  among  Scottish  cities  ?  (5.)  Describe  its 
founding.  (Gardiner,  i.  43.)  (6.)  What  reason  brought  about  the 
cession  to  the  Scots  of  the  territory  lying  between  Edinburgh 
and  the  Cheviot  Hills  ?  (Gardiner,  i.  64,  68.)  (7.)  Was  that 
a  w'ise  policy  ?  (8.)  What  race  of  people  occupied  the  ceded 
district  ?  (9.)  What  was  to  be  the  character,  then,  of  the  future 
Scottish  kingdom  ? 


C3 


22.  Renewed  Attacks  and  Complete  Conquest  by  the 

Danes.  , 

Topics. 

1.  Renewed  invasions. 

2.  Complete  conquest. 

3.  Reign  of  Canute. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  79-86. 

23.  The  Last  English  Kings. 
Topics. 

1.  Edward  the  Confessor. 

2.  Settlement  of  Normandy. 

3.  The  government  of  Edward  the  Confessor. 

4.  Death  of  Edward  and  election  of  Harold. 

5.  Claim  of  William  of  Normandy. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  86-93.  The  church  before  the  Con- 
quest: Green,  18,  19,  23-27,30-32:  Stubbs,  Early  Plantagenets, 
58-61 ;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  ch.  viii. ;  H.  Taylor,  i.  154-163  ;  Taswell- 
Langmead,  8,  9.     The  Synod  of  Whitby:  Green,  29,  30  ;  Green, 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.        5 1 

H.  E.  v.,  i.  53,  54  ;  Green,  M.  E.,  313-315.  National  government 
before  the  Conquest  :  H.  Taylor,  i,  ch.  v. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  If  the  kingship  was  elective,  how 
could  it  be  hereditary  ?  (2.)  Did  the  Witenagemot  desire  ever  to 
elect  a  child.'*  (3.)  Why  not?  (4.)  During  whose  reign  in  Eng- 
land was  Shakespeare's  Duncan  murdered  by  Macbeth  ?    (Guest, 

I33-) 


LINEAGE    OF    THE    WEST    SAXON    KINGS    FROM    EGBERT. 


ist  Generation.     2d. 

3d. 

Ethelbald, 
858-860. 

4th. 

5th. 

6th. 

Egbert,  (  Ethelwulf, 
800-836.  (      836-858. 

Ethelbert, 

860-866. 

Ethelred, 
866-871. 

Ethelstan, 

925-940. 

Edwig, 

955-958. 

Alfred, 

{T/ie  Great), 

871-901. 

(     Edward, 
j  (  T/ie  Elder), ' 
(      901-925. 

Edmund, 
940-946. 

Edred, 
946-955. 

Edgar, 

958-975, 

married, 

i.-'Ethelfied; 

.  2.  Elfthryth. 

6th. 


7th. 


Edgak,       (        E^dward, 
married        I    { The  Martyr), 
Ethelfled ;   (  975-979. 


2.  Elfthryth.  < 


''       f 


Ethelred, 

( T/ie  Unready), 

979-1016,        \ 

married,  | 

I.  Elfied;        I. 


2.  Emma, 

daughter  of 

Richard  I. 

of  Normandy. 


8th. 


Edmund, 

[Ironside), 

1016, 

married 

Eldgyth. 


9th. 


Edward, 
died  1057. 


loth. 


Margaret, 

married 

Malcolm, 

King  of  Scots. 


f         Edward, 
1    ( The  Confessor), 


1042-1066, 

married 

Edgyth. 


nth. 

f     Edgyth  Matilda, 
J  married 


loth. 

Margaret, 
married 

Malcolm,       1  Henry  I., 

King  of  Scots.   (.  King  of  Efigland. 


SURVEY    OF   GENERAL   HISTORY. 

SIXTH    TO    TWELFTH    CENTURIES. 

Rise  of  the  Empire  of  the  Franks  and  of  the  authority  of  the 
Popes  i/i  the  Western  Christian  Church.  Among  the  king- 
doms founded  by  the  tribes  which  overthrew  the  Roman  Em- 
pire in  western  Europe,  the  first  to  rise  to  importance  were 
those  of  the  Franks  in  Gaul  and  the  Goths  in  Italy  and  Spain. 
The  Gothic  kingdom  in  Italy  was  attacked,  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, by  the  eastern  Roman  emperor,  who  reigned  at  Con- 
stantinople, and  was  destroyed  ;  but  only  to  make  room  for  a 
fresh  Germanic  invasion  and  conquest,  by  a  tribe  called  the 
Lombards  (Long-beards),  who  settled  in  northern  Italy  and 
established  a  kingdom  there.  In  this  period,  the  city  of  Rome 
was  left  much  to  itself,  and  its  bishops  (already  called  popes, 
signifying  fathers)  became  its  actual  rulers,  and  began  to  ac- 
quire high  princely  rank,  as  well  as  great  spiritual  authority 
over  a  large  part  of  the  Christian  church. 

Meantime,  after  much  change  and  division  of  kingdoms, 
the  Franks  had  been  united  under  a  new  race  of  kings,  called 
the  Carolingian  or  Carlovingian,  who  subjugated  the  Lom- 
bards and  became  the  special  allies  and  champions  of  the 
popes.  The  second  of  these  kings,  known  as  Charles  the 
Great  (Charlemagne),  extended  his  dominion  from  Naples  in 
Italy  and  from  the  Ebro  in  Spain  to  the  Elbe  in  northern 
Germany ;  and  on  Christmas  Day  of  the  year  800  he  received 
an  imperial  crown  from  the  pope,  who  declared  him  to  be  a 
successor  to  the  old  Roman  emperors  in  the  west. 

The  huge  empire  of  Charlemagne  went  to  pieces  after  the 
death  of  his  son,  Louis,  and  various  divisions  of  it  were  made, 
resulting  (888)  in  four  kingdoms  :  that  of  the  East  Franks,  or 


SIXTH    TO    TWELFTH    CENTURIES.  53 

Germany;  that  of  the  West  Franks,  which  became  France; 
the  kingdom  of  Italy  ;  and  the  kingdom  of  Burgundy  ;  the 
last  named  soon  passing  through  many  changes  and  leaving 
its  name  finally  to  a  feudal  duchy  of  the  French.  Both  the 
German  and  the  West  Frank  kingdoms  were  split  into  great 
feudal  hefs,  the  chiefs  of  which  were  rivals  in  power  of  their 
feudal  lord,  the  king. 

The  Feudal  System.  The  system  called  "  feudal,"  which 
took  form  at  that  time  in  western  Europe,  was  a  system  that 
based  the  whole  structure  of  society  on  certain  peculiar  ar- 
rangements for  the  holding  of  land.  Each  one,  below  the 
king,  who  held  land,  was  a  "  vassal,"  owing  some  kind  of  ser- 
vice, military  and  other,  to  some  one  above  him,  his  "  su;:e- 
rain,"  or  overlord,  who  owed  him  protection  in  return.  The 
same  man  might  be  an  overlord  to  some  below  him,  and  a 
vassal  to  one  above,  if  his  holding  of  land  —  his  "fief,"  as 
the  feudal  lawyers  named  it  —  was  large  enough  to  subdivide 
into  lesser  fiefs.  It  was  a  military  organization  of  society,  in 
the  first  instance  ;  but  the  land-lord  came  to  be  the  political 
lord  of  his  vassals  —  their  judge  and  ruler,  in  most  affairs, 
as  well  as  their  military  chief  ;  and  thus,  out  of  the  feudal 
system  of  land  tenure,  there  arose  a  feudal  system  of  govern- 
ment, which  hindered  the  growth  of  national  unity,  by  the 
division,  the  conflict,  and  the  weakening  of  authority  that  it 
caused. 

The  Revived  Empire.  In  962,  one  of  the  East  Frank  or 
German  kings,  Otho  L,  added  the  kingdom  of  Italy  to  his 
own  and  again  revived  the  Roman  Empire  in  name,  as  Charle- 
magne had  done,  by  obtaining  the  crown  and  title  of  emperor 
from  the  pope.  For  centuries  thereafter  each  German  king 
received  the  imperial  title  by  coronation  at  Rome,  and  claimed 
a  sovereignty  over  Italy,  which  he  exercised  only  on  occa- 
sional armed  visits,  in  a  fitful  and  ruinous  way.  Neither  in 
Italy  nor  in  Germany  were  these  emperor-kings  ever  able  to 
establish  an  authority  that  could  nationalize  their  realms. 
Disorder  in  both  countries  was  increased  by  the  bitter  and 


54  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

long-lasting  quarrels  that  arose  between  emperors  and  popes, 
creating  at  last,  in  Italy,  the  famous  factions  of  Guelfs  and 
Ghibellines,  which  fought  each  other  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years. 

Free  Cities.  The  chaotic  state  of  government  in  Italy  gave 
many  rising  cities,  in  the  tenth,  eleventh,  and  twelfth  centuries, 
an  opportunity  to  acquire  substantial  independence  in  the 
management  of  their  affairs.  They  became  small  republics, 
which  rivalled  in  spirit  the  city  republics  of  ancient  Greece. 
A  little  later,  in  Germany,  the  similar  state  of  things  produced 
a  similar  result.  Feudalism,  in  that  country,  was  having  its 
worst  effects.  Even  the  greater  feudal  fiefs  went  to  pieces, 
and  the  German  kingdom  was  being  dissolved  into  petty 
principalities,  among  which  numerous  cities  were  growing 
strong  enough  to  be  practically  free  from  any  overlordship 
except  that  which  a  nominal  emperor  might  claim. 

The  Rise  of  the  Kingdo77i  of  France.  In  the  kingdom  of  the 
West  Franks  many  disorders  prevailed,  among  them  the 
attacks  of  the  vikings,  described  in  the  last  chapter.  A  new 
line  of  kings  was  founded,  in  987,  by  the  coronation  of  Hugh 
Capet,  Count  of  Paris  and  Orleans,  who  bore  the  further  title 
of  Duke  of  France.  The  real  power  of  these  kings  at  first 
was  litde  more  than  their  duchy  and  county  gave  them.  Nor- 
mandy, Burgundy,  Aquitaine,  Flanders,  Champagne,  and 
Toulouse,  were  great  fiefs  of  the  crown  that  long  over- 
shadowed it  in  actual  power. 

Co7iquests  of  the  Moha7n7nedans .  In  632,  Mahomet,  or  Mo- 
hammed, the  Arabian  founder  of  a  new  religion,  died,  and 
his  followers  went  forth  to  conquer  and  convert  the  world. 
Within  a  generation  they  had  subjugated  Palestine,  Syria, 
Persia,  and  Egypt,  and  were  at  the  gates  of  Constantinople, 
beginning  attacks  on  the  Eastern  Empire  (sometimes  called 
the  Byzantine  Empire),  which  went  on  through  the  next  eight 
hundred  years.  Before  the  seventh  century  closed,  they  had 
pressed  through  northern  Africa  to  the  Atlantic  coast ;  in  a 
few  years  more  they  were  masters  of  the  greater  part  of  Spain. 


SIXTH    TO   TWELFTH   CENTURIES.  55 

At  about  the  same  time  they  reached  Central  Asia  and  over- 
came the  Turks,  who  then  dwelt  beyond  the  Caspian  Sea, 
The  Turks  became  converts,  and,  in  the  course  of  the  next 
two  centuries,  they  supplanted  their  Arab  conquerors  and 
were  the  lords  of  the  Mohammedan  empire  in  the  east. 

The  Crusades.  Late  in  the  eleventh  century  (1076),  Jeru- 
salem was  taken  by  these  Turks,  and  Christian  pilgrims  to 
the  sepulchre  of  Christ  received  treatment  at  their  hands 
which  roused  the  wrath  of  Europe  when  it  was  known.  Be- 
fore the  century  ended,  a  great  movement  (the  first  Crusade, 
1 096-1 099),  of  French  and  Normans  for  the  most  part,  drove 
the  Turks  from  the  holy  places  of  Palestine,  and  founded  a 
Christian  kingdom  at  Jerusalem  ;  but  its  foundation  was  not 
firmly  laid.  Thrice,  in  the  twelfth  century  (1147,  1188,  1196), 
huge  armies  were  led  by  emperors  and  kings  from  western 
Europe,  in  vain  attempts  to  make  the  Christian  possession 
of  Palestine  secure.  Vast  numbers  perished  in  these  expe- 
ditions ;  but  those  who  returned  brought  new  knowledge,  new 
thoughts,  minds  expanded  and  stirred,  and  remarkable  results 
of  intellectual  wakening  appeared  in  the  following  age.  Feu- 
dalism was  weakened  by  the  impoverishment  of  great  lords, 
who  spent  extravagant  sums  on  the  crusades  ;  towns  won  more 
freedom,  by  purchase  or  by  force,  and  the  general  gain  to  the 
people  of  western  Europe  was  great. 

Knighthood  and  Chivalry,  In  the  latter  part  of  the  tenth 
century,  and  the  first  of  the  eleventh,  the  institution  of  orders 
of  knighthood  began  to  produce  some  refinement  of  military 
manners  in  western  Europe,  by  what  is  described  as  the  spirit 
of  chivalry.  In  reality,  it  arose  from  the  aristocratic  class- 
feeling  of  the  warriors  who  rode  on  horseback,  making  them 
respectful  and  increasingly  courteous  toward  one  another, 
while  arrogant  and  disdainful  toward  the  remainder  of  man- 
kind. It  had,  undoubtedly,  some  civilizing  effects,  but  they 
were  probably  less  than  is  commonly  represented  in  modern 
romance. 

Industry  and  Trade.     For  some  centuries  Constantinople, 


56  GENERAL    HISTORY. 

controlling  the  trade  between  Asia  and  Europe,  was  the  great- 
est of  commercial  cities.  By  the  Black  Sea  and  the  Danube, 
as  well  as  by  the  Mediterranean,  commodities  were  slowly 
exchanged  between  the  Byzantine  capital  and  western  and 
northern  Europe,  with  much  trouble  from  brigandage  on  land 
and  piracy  at  sea.  Gradually  Venice,  Genoa,  and  other  Ital- 
ian cities,  came  into  the  field,  helping  to  handle  Byzantine 
trade  in  the  west.  Along  routes  by  river  and  road  through 
the  country  of  the  Franks,  from  the  Mediterranean  to  the 
Rhine,  and  by  the  coasts  and  rivers  further  north,  an  active 
exchange  of  goods  went  on  with  steady  increase.  On  the 
Baltic,  and  on  the  rivers  that  flow  into  it,  important  seats  of 
trade  appeared  at  a  remarkably  early  day. 

The  Frisians,  of  the  northern  Netherlands,  were  famous  in 
Charlemagne's  time  for  their  woven  goods  ;  but  in  the  tenth 
century,  Count  Baldwin,  of  Flanders,  made  his  towns  the  most 
flourishing  seats  of  the  woollen-working  industry,  by  inviting 
skilled  workmen  to  them,  and  establishing  fairs.  Through- 
out the  Netherlands  there  was  great  thrift,  enterprise,  and 
prosperity  from  a  very  early  time.  By  the  twelfth  century, 
cloth-making  industries  had  gained  a  prosperous  growth  in 
German  towns,  among  which  Cologne  had  then  the  lead,  and 
the  merchants  of  Cologne  had  established  a  "  hanse  "  or  asso- 
ciation in  London,  with  trading  privileges  there. 

Lear?ti?ig.  After  the  barbaric  conquest  of  the  Roman  pro- 
vinces in  the  west,  schools,  except  such  as  taught  theology  in 
the  monasteries  and  cathedrals,  disappeared.  Charlemagne 
was  the  first  of  the  new  rulers  to  interest  himself  in  learning, 
and  he  drew  to  his  court  a  society  of  scholarly  men,  with 
Alcuin,  an  P>nglishman,  at  their  head.  In  Eligland,  a  little 
later,  King  Alfred  gave  still  warmer  encouragement  to  the 
education  of  his  people  ;  but  neither  Charlemagne  nor  Alfred 
did  a  work  in  that  direction  that  endured.  It  was  not  until 
the  opening  of  the  eleventh  century  that  a  real  wakening  of 
intellectual  life  can  be  seen.  Then  crowds  of  students  bejran 
to  flock  to  Paris,  Salerno,  Bologna,  and  elsewhere,  to  listen 


SIXTH    TO    TWELFTH    CENTURIES.  5/ 

to  famous  teachers  of  law,  medicine,  and  philosophy,  who 
gave  lectures  and  held  disputes.  The  state  of  learning  in 
Christian  countries  throughout  this  period  appears  to  have 
been  surpassed  by  that  of  the  Arabs  or  Moors  in  Spain,  and 
in  other  parts  of  the  Mohammedan  world. 

Literature.  Before  the  Germanic  and  Celtic  peoples  of 
western  Europe  had  learned  to  put  their  thoughts  and  fancies 
into  writing,  there  seems  to  have  existed  among  them  a  great 
body  of  poetry  and  romance  that  was  carried  in  the  memory 
of  minstrels,  for  singing  and  recitation  at  the  courts  of  kings 
and  in  the  halls  of  the  chiefs.  Such  songs  and  tales,  being 
thus  preserved  until  Christian  times,  were  then  copied  and 
worked  over  by  writers  in  the  monasteries,  with  more  or  less 
piecing  and  changing,  and  some  mixing  of  Christian  with  old 
pagan  ideas.  That  seems  to  be  the  probable  origin  of  the 
older  literature  that  has  come  down  from  mediaeval  times. 

The  ancient  minstrelsy  first  inspired  a  new  singing  of  its 
songs  in  France,  at  some  time  in  the  eleventh  century,  when 
an  interesting  species  of  literature,  known  as  the  Chansons 
de  Gestes,  or  songs  of  heroes  and  deeds,  began  to  be  pro- 
duced. In  southern  France,  a  more  lyrical  form  of  verse, 
devoted  largely  to  themes  of  love,  was  cultivated  at  about  the 
same  time  by  poets  known  as  "  troubadours,"  of  Provence. 

But  the  great  age  of  revival  for  heroic  poetry  and  romance 
came  a  little  later,  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries, 
when  the  ancient  lays  and  legends  of  Germany  received  the 
epic  forms  in  which  we  know  them  ;  when  the  Nibelungenlied 
was  constructed  ;  when  the  song  of  The  Cid  was  sung  in  Spain  ; 
when  the  Welsh  legends  of  King  Arthur  were  caught  up,  in 
England,  France,  and  Germany,  to  be  made  the  groundwork 
of  that  wonderful  group  of  romances  which  kindle  poetry  and 
delight  the  world  to  this  day. 

Architeeture.  By  introducing  the  arch  and  the  vault,  which 
the  Greeks  had  not  employed,  the  Romans  were  the  begin- 
ners of  an  entirely  new  development  of  the  building  art.  The 
northern  nations   that  supplanted   the  Romans   took  up  the 


58  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

hint  —  it  was  scarcely  more  —  which  the  latter  had  given,  and 
slowly  worked  it  out.  By  carrying  the  construction  of  arches 
and  vaulting  to  higher  and  higher  perfection,  using  both 
rounded  and  pointed  forms,  varying  and  modifying  both, 
enriching  them  with  ornament,  adding  gracefulness  to  the 
strength  of  their  supports,  and  giving  harmony  and  beauty  of 
line  to  all  their  accessories,  the  unknown  builders  of  these 
ages  created  the  styles  of  architecture  called  Romanesque  and 
Gothic,  and  raised  for  Christian  worship^  in  western  and 
northern  Europe,  an  amazing  number  of  structures  that  rank 
with  the  sublimest  works  of  the  human  brain  and  hand. 


THE   NORMAN-ENGLISH   NATION. 
1066-1199. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE    NORMAN    CONQUEST    AND    ITS    FIRST    EFFECTS. 

William  I.     1066-1087. 

24.  The  Duke  of  Normandy.  William,  Duke  of 
Normandy,  was  a  bold  and  remarkably  able  man.  He 
had  made  himself  master  of  his  dukedom  under  difficul- 
ties which  few  could  have  overcome.  There  was  a  stain 
upon  his  birth  ;  his  mother,  Arlette,  or  Herleva,  was  a 
tanner's  daughter;  his  father,  Duke  Robert,  had  died 
while  he  was  still  a  child,  and  the  Norman  barons  had 
scorned  the  authority  exercised  by  guardians  in  his  name. 
Yet  their  proud  necks  had  been  bent,  and  no  duke  of 
Normandy  before  him  had  exercised  an  authority  so  real 
as  he  now  possessed.  He  was  far  the  most  powerful  of 
the  great  feudal  lords  who  rendered  homage  to  the  French 
king,  as  vassals  in  name  and  form,  but  who  were  practi- 
cally independent  in  their  several  domains. 

This  formidable  claimant  of  the  English  crown  now 
made   his  preparations  to  take  it  by  force.     If  all  that 
he  asserted,  as  to  Edward's  promise  and  Har-  Emptiness 
old's  oath,  were  fully  true,  they  gave  him  no  ^niiam's 
right.     Succession  to  the  kingship  in  England  '^^^^"^• 
was  still,  as  at  the  beginning,  subject  to  a  national  elec- 
tion, in  some  form.     Hitherto  the  kings  had  been  chosen 


6o 


THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION. 


[1066 


from  one  family ;  but  William  belonged  to  that  family 
no  more  than  Harold  did,  and  neither  Edward's  word 
nor  Harold's  word  could  give  him  any  claim  which  the 
English  or  their  Witenagemot  were  bound  to  take  into 


WILLIAM    THE    CONQUEROR,    AS    PICTURED    ON    THE 
BAYEUX    TAPESTRY. 

account.  On  the  continent  this  fact  was  not  easily 
understood.  It  presented  a  view  of  kingship  which  most 
of  the  nations  there  had  lost.  They  had  allowed  crowns 
to  become  the  personal  property  of  those  who  wore  them, 
to  be  passed  from  father  to  son  like  an  estate  in  land. 
Therefore  continental  opinion  approved  the  duke's  claims, 
and  the  pope  decided  them  to  be  good. 

25.  The  Fall  of  Harold.     Thus  authorized  and  com- 
mended, William  of  Normandy  gathered  an  army  of  ad- 


io66] 


THE   NORMAN    CONQUEST. 


6i 


venturers  from  his  own  dominions  and  from  surrounding 
countries  for  the  conquest  of  England.  Harold,  with 
equal  energy,  made  ready  to  defend  his  crown.  In  the 
language  of  the  Chronicle,  he  assembled  "  so  great  a 
ship-force,  and  also  a  land-force,  as  no  king  here  in  the 
land  had  before  done."  But  Harold  had  other  enemies 
than  Duke  William  to  contend  with,  and  they  caused  his 
ruin. 

Among  them  was  his  own  brother,  Tostig,  who  had 
been  driven  from  the  earldom  of  Northumbria  by  a 
revolt  which  his  misrule  provoked.  Wrathful  against 
Harold,  who  failed,  he  thought,  to  stand  by  him,  he  had 


NORMAN    VESSEL    OF   THE    ELEVENTH    CENTURY,    RESTORED    FROM 

THE    BAYEUX    TAPESTRY. 


fled  to  the  continent,  and, had  either  stirred  up  or  encour- 
aged an  ambitious  king  of  Norway,  named  Harold  Har- 
drada,  to  attack  England  at  just  the  moment  when  the 
Norman  attack  was  beins:  prepared.     The  Nor- 

The  attack 

wegian  invaders  moved  sooner  than  the  Nor-  from 
mans,   and  had   landed   in   Northumbria  while 
the    ships    of   the  latter  waited    for   a  favorable   wind. 
Defeating  the  English  forces  in  the  north  at  Fulford, 
they  entered  York. 


62  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.  [1066 

When  news  of  their  landing  reached  the  Enghsh  King 
Harold,  in  September  of  the  fateful  year  1066,  he  was 
watching  the  southern  coast,  in  daily  expectation  of  the 
arrival  of  his  more  dreaded  foe.  The  army  and  fleet 
which  he  had  held  together  for  four  months  was  melting 
away  ;  his  men  could  be  kept  no  longer  from  their  homes. 
A  more  desperate  situation,  more  courageously  faced,  is 
hardly  found  in  history.  Taking  such  forces  as  he  could 
still  command,  Harold  marched  northward  with  speed, 
and  surprised  and  routed  the  Norwegians  in  a  memo- 
rable battle  at  Stamford  Bridge,  leaving  Tostig  and  Har- 
Therout-  ^^^  Hardrada  dead  on  the  field.  Then,  with 
NorwV-^^  little  pause,  he  hurried  back  to  the  south,  but 
gians.  ^QQ  \2Xq  to  defend   its  coast.     The  winds  had 

shifted  in  his  absence,  and,  three  days  after  the  fight  at 
Stamford  Bridge,  the  Normans  had  landed  at  Pevensey, 
in  Sussex,  and  were  laying  waste  the  country  around. 
To  stop  the  havoc,  Harold  was  forced  to  confront  them 
in  haste,  with  an  insufficient  army,  made  up  in  large  part 
of  untrained  men.  He  took  his  stand  on  the  hill  of 
Senlac,  near  Hastings  (where  Battle  Abbey  was  built 
The  battle  afterwards  by  the  Conqueror),  and  there,  on 
orHast^^'  ^^^  ^4^^  ^^  Octobcr,  the  momentous  battle 
ings.  which   turned   the  current  of   English   history 

into  a  new  channel  was  fought.  Of  English  valor  and 
English  stubbornness  there  was  no  lack  on  Harold's 
side ;  but,  excepting  the  stout  "  house-carls  "  of  his  body- 
guard, he  seems  to  have  had  no  trained  soldiers,  nor  any 
who  used  the  bow.  He  and  his  men  fought  with  the 
battle-axe,  on  foot,  against  mounted  knights  and  men-at- 
arms,  and  against  skilful  archers,  whose  trade  was  war. 
Yet  the  English  came  near  to  victory.  The  Normans 
were  repulsed  again  and  again,  until  William,  by  a  feint 
of  flight,  lured  some  of  the  English  into  a  disorderly  pur- 


io66] 


THE    NORMAN    CONQUEST. 


63 


suit.  Then,  turning  on  them,  he  drove  them  wildly  back. 
From  dawn  until  sunset  the  fighting  raged,  and  when  it 
ended  Harold  and  most  of  his  faithful  thanes  were  lying 
with  the  dead. 

The  battle  of  Senlac,  or  Hastings  (both  names  have 
been  given  to  it),  was  decisive  of  the  fate  of  England. 
There  was  no  leader  of  prestige  or  authority  left  to  rally 
the  people  at  large,  and  no  nationality  of  feeling  to  supply 


THE  BATTLE  OF  SENLAC,  FROM  THE  BAYEUX  TAPESTRY. 


the  want.  While  William  marched  slowly  toward  Lon- 
don, some  part  of  the  Witenagemot  met  hastily  there  and 
chose  a  new  king.  Its  choice  was  Edgar,  the  atheling, 
that    youthful   o:randson   of    Edmund    Ironside 

J  .  The 

whose  claims  were  set  aside  when  Harold  was  crowning 
made  king.  He  was  still  a  boy,  and  his  elec- 
tion could  have  no  effect.  William's  march  was  unop- 
posed. London  could  do  nothing  but  submit.  Edgar 
surrendered  the  crown  he  had  not  worn  ;  an  assembly 
which  might  pass  for  the  Witenagemot  of  the  nation 
conferred  it  by  vote  on  the  Norman  duke,  and  on  Christ- 
mas Day,   1066,  he  was  crowned  King   of    England  in 


64  THE   NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.  [1067 

the  Westminster  of  the  Confessor,  by  Eldred,  the  Eng- 
Ush  Archbishop  of  York. 

26.  The  Norman  King  on  the  English  Throne.  As 
far  as  legal  form  could  make  him  so,  William  was  now 
a  rightful  EngHsh  king.  In  the  southeast  of  England 
his  authority  was  estabHshed  fully  from  the  first,  and 
there  he  began  at  once  to  show  the  policy  he  meant  to 
pursue.  He  made  no  seizure  of  English  territory  by 
right  of  conquest,  but  by  confiscation  he  took  lands  far 
and  wide.  Harold's  occupancy  of  the  throne  had  been 
usurpation  in  the  Norman  view  ;  support  given  to  it  had 
been  treason ;  continued  resistance  to  the  rightful  king 
was  deeper  treason ;  the  king  was  merciful  if  he  exacted 
forfeiture  of  estates  without  forfeiture  of  life.  This  was 
The  Con-  the  theory  of  William's  course.  He  spared 
confisca-  ^^^^'  ^^^  ^^  Confiscated  lands  ;  and  according  to 
tions.  i\^Q  custom  of  the  age  he  acted  within  his  rights. 

The  landlords  who  submitted  might  redeem  their  es- 
tates by  some  heavy  payment ;  but  the  confiscation 
from  those  who  did  not  submit  promptly  was  immense. 
Now,  too,  what  remained  of  the  English  folk-land,  or 
common  land,  was  assumed  to  be  crown-land ;  and  so 
William,  on  one  claim  and  another,  took  a  great  part  of 
the  lands  within  his  reach.  He  distributed  them  by 
grant  among  his  foreign  followers,  and  thus  bound  them 
to  a  common  interest  with  himself  in  the  defence  of  what 
they  had  won. 

Nevertheless,  we  must  not  understand  that  William 
was  simply  rapacious  in  his  treatment  of  the  kingdom  he 
had  gained.  He  respected  its  institutions  and  tried  to 
William's  couform  his  government  to  English  laws.  He 
govern-^  wishcd  to  be  as  masterful  in  keeping  order  as 
ment.  ^^-^  taking  lands.     He  strove  to  protect  his  Eng- 

lish subjects  from  any  oppression  except  his  own  ;  but 


io67]  THE    NORMAN    CONQUEST.  65 

that  could  not  be  done.  He  could  not  establish  his  throne 
without  making  its  Norman  supporters  strong,  and  the 
power  he  gave  them  in  their  lordships  was  sure  to  be 
oppressively  used.     If  we  say  that  he  ruled  England  as 


,^"-i 


THE    TOWER    OF    LONDON    IN    I597. 

nearly  in  the  spirit  of  an  English  king  as  one  could  who 
ruled  by  force  of  foreign  arms,  we  have  said  the  most 
that  we  can  say  in  his  praise. 

The  character  of  the  new  sovereignty,  as  one  resting 
upon  conquest,  was  marked  very  quickly  by  the  castle- 
building  that  began.  Almost  the  first  act  of  the  Con- 
queror  in    London    was    the    founding    of    the  famous 


66  THE   NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1067-1071 

Tower,  which  remams  the  one  conspicuous  monument  of 
his  reign.  In  other  cities,  as  they  submitted,  and  in  all 
places  of  military  importance,  the  castles  of  the  king 
began  to  rise.  The  new  lords  of  the  land,  too,  were 
encouraged  to  fortify  themselves  in  their  possessions  by 
the  same  building  of  Norman  "keeps."  Before  William 
died,  it  is  believed  that  he  held  no  less  than  forty-nine 
castles  under  his  own  control,  while  his  barons  held  fifty 
more.      But  the  castles  then  erected  appear  to 

Norman 

castle-         have  been  mostly  small  and  built  in  haste,  since 

building.         -  .     .  .  ,      .  ,  , 

lew  01  the  ruins  now  existing  can  be  traced, 
even  in  part,  to  so  early  a  time.  The  original  structures 
were  generally  replaced,  after  one  or  two  centuries,  by 
the  massive  strongholds  whose  broken  walls  excite  won- 
der to-day. 

27.  The  Completion  of  the  Conquest.     In  the  first 
four  years  of  his  reign,  William  had  to  deal  with  a  num- 
ber of  revolts,  which  he  put  down  with  a  merci- 
The  ^ 

wasting  of    less  hand.     He  crushed  Northumberland  with 

Northum-  .    ,      ,        ,        . 

beriand,  especial  barbarity,  going  personally  up  and 
down  with  his  army,  wasting  fields,  destroying 
houses,  barns,  and  cattle,  until  he  had  made  such  a  wil- 
derness of  the  land  that  it  did  not  recover  until  modern 
times. 

The  final  rising  of  the  English  against  the  Conqueror 
occurred  (1070-10)71)  in  the  Fen  Country,  as  it  is  known, 
of  northern  Cambridgeshire  and  thereabouts.  Its  leader 
was  one  Hereward,  a  valiant  man,  whose  exploits  were 
so  magnified  in  popular  legends  that  no  trustworthy 
account  of  him  has  come  down.  Under  Hereward,  a 
famous  "  Camp  of  Refuge  "  was  established  on 
the  Isle  of  Ely,  —  then  literally  an  island,  sur- 
rounded by  the  waters  of  the  wide-stretching  Fen,  — ^ 
and  a  large   body   of    stubborn   Englishmen  held   their 


1067-1085]  .THE    NORMAN    CONQUEST.  6/ 

ground  there  for  more  than  a  year.  WilHam  dislodged 
them  in  the  end,  by  building  a  causeway  through  the 
Fen ;  but  Here  ward  escaped,  and  various  stories  of  his 
later  career  are  told. 

Malcolm,  King  of  Scotland,  was  a  troublesome  neigh- 
bor, who  had  twice  ravaged  northern  England  since 
William  came,  and  in  1072  the  latter  led  an  army  against 
him,  which  carried  fire  and  sword  to  the  Tay.  Malcolm 
was  thoroughly  subdued  for  the  time,  and  did  homage 
to  the  newkinsf  of  EnHand,  as  "  his  man."   The 

^  ^  '  Scotland. 

English  atheling,  Edgar,  was  then  a  refugee 
at  the  Scottish  court,  and  Edgar's  sister,  the  Princess 
Margaret,  a  gentle  and  pious  woman,  whose  name  is  in 
the  calendar  of  saints,  had  been  persuaded  by  Malcolm 
to  become  his  wife.  As  queen,  her  refining  influence  on 
the  rude  Scottish  court,  and  through  the  court  on  the 
kingdom,  was  very  great. 

28.  The  Conqueror's  Feudal  System.  King  Wil- 
liam's confiscation  of  estates  in  land  opened  the  way  to  a 
change  in  land-tenure,  and  altered  the  structure  of  Eng- 
lish society  with  most  important  political  effects.  It 
cleared  the  ground  for  building  up  in  England,  more 
deliberately  than  in  any  other  country,  the  system  of 
land-possession  called  ''feudal."  In  England,  as  in 
France  and  Germany,  the  circumstances  of  the  age  had 
been  slowly  shaping  things  to  that  system,  bringing  the 
lesser  landholders  into  dependence  on  the  greater  land- 
lords ;  but  the  movement  in  England  was  not  so  far 
advanced  when  the  Norman  Conquest  occurred. 

The  Conqueror  took  advantage  of  his  power  to  change 
its  form,  and  it  is  plain  that  he  saved  England  from  great 
future  troubles  by  what  he  did.  If  he  was  hard  and  self- 
ish in  character,  he  was  no  less  a  statesman  of  remark- 
able powers.     He  worked  according  to  the  ideas  of  his 


68  THE   NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.      [1067-10S5 

time,  which  took  for  granted  that  society  must  be  organ- 
The  ized  on  a  feudal  plan.     Therefore  he  brought 

^arfSnof  ^  feudal  systcm  to  completion  in  his  new  king- 
feudaiism.    ^^y^-^ .  |3^^  [^  ^y^g  g^  system  of  his  own,  and  not 

that  of  the  French.     (See  page  53.) 

In  re-granting  the  confiscated  lands  to  his  followers,  he 
seems  to  have  taken  care,  in  the  first  place,  to  give  away 
few  judicial  rights  or  powers  that  would  interfere  with 
the  exercise  of  royal  authority  in  all  parts  of  the  king- 
dom, through  royal  officers  and  courts.  He  seems,  also, 
to  have  wisely  given  more  protection  to  the  local 
''moots  "  and  other  institutions  of  local  popular 

Royal  pre-  .  1  •         1 

rogative       government,  m  township,  hundred,  and  shire, 

and  popu-  .        ,  ^  ,  _^ 

lar  govern-  than  they  had  received  under  the  English 
kings  ;  and  the  preservation  of  those  was  the 
saving  of  seed,  from  which  a  national  representation  of 
the  people  in  government  grew  up  in  later  times.  In 
the  second  place,  he  took  care  that  every  freeman  should 
understand  himself  to  be,  before  all  things  else,  the  king's 
"man,"  and  should  swear  allegiance  to  the  king  "before 
all  others,"  — which  was  a  very  different  allegiance  from 
that  known  in  France.  In  the  third  place,  he  took  care 
to  create  no  formidably  large  fiefs ;  and,  finally,  he  kept 
alive  the  old  national  militia  system  of  the  Fyrd  (see  sec- 
tion 10),  which  went  flatly  against  the  feudal  military 
scheme.  By  these  sagacious  methods  William  founded 
a  feudal  system  from  which  the  more  mischievous  work- 
ings were  taken  away. 

Nevertheless,  after  William's  death,  the  royal  author- 
ity was  enforced  with  great  difficulty  against  a  class  of 
powerful  barons,  and  only  with  the  help  of  the  common 
people,  who  saw  more  to  fear  from  the  turbulence  of  the 
nobles  than  from  the  power  of  the  king.  Later,  when  a 
national  throne  had  been  settled  more  firmly,  there  came 


1067-1085]  THE    NORMAN    CONQUEST.  69 

about,  as  we  shall  see,  a  union  of  lords  and  commons 
against  the  crown,  which  made  the  English  constitution 
what  it  is  ;  and  which  could  hardly  have  occurred  if  the 
feudal  system  had  grown  in  England  as  in  France. 

29.  The  Social  Effects  of  the  Norman  Conquest. 
The  effects  of  the  Norman  Conquest  on  the  condition  of 
the  general  mass  of  the  English  people  (except  in  the 
districts  which  the  Conqueror  wasted  cruelly)  was  prob- 
ably not  very  great.  We  have  seen  that  the  free  and 
democratic  state  of  society  with  which  the  English  began 
their  settlement  had  been  undergoing,  from  the  first,  a 
grievous  change.  One  small  class  had  been  rising ;  an- 
other large  class  had  been  slowly  sinking  to  a  dependent 
state  ;  and  various  influences  tended  to  increase  the  num- 
bers in  the  latter  class. 

Some  such  influences  have  been  mentioned,  but  there 
is  a  later  one  to  add,  which  possibly  wrought  more  mis- 
chief to  the  humbler  order  of  freemen  than  any  before  it. 
That  was  the  burden  of  the  "Danegeld,"  a  heavy  land- 
tax,  first  imposed  by  Ethel  red,  about  991,  as  a  rj,^^ 
means  of  paying  tribute  to  the  Danes,  but  con-  i^anegeid. 
tinned  thereafter  as  an  established  "geld"  or  tax,  still 
keeping  the  name  by  which  its  origin  was  shown.  It  was 
a  burden  on  the  smaller  landowners  which  many  of  them 
could  not  bear,  and  they  sank  under  it,  losing  their  lands 
and  dropping  into  the  dependent  and  unfree  class. 

The  state  pushed  still  more  of  them  down,  by  refusing 
presently  to  collect  the  tax  in  petty  sums.  It  held  their 
"  lords  "  accountable  for  the  geld  which  small  landowners 
should  pay.  This  practically  resulted  in  giving  to  the 
lords  a  recognized  title  to  the  lands  on  which  they  made 
good  the  tax.  It  probably  had  much  to  do  with  the 
changing  of  free  townships  or  villages  into  those  depend- 
ent villages  which  the  Normans  after  the  Conquest  called 


JO  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.      [1067-1085 

"manors"   (see   section   11).      In  the  opinion  of   some 
later   students  of  that  obscure   subject,   every 

The  manor  .  ,  ,    ,  ,  ,  .  i        1       1 

and  the  house  agamst  which  geld  was  charged,  whether 
the  house  of  "a  great  man  or  a  small,  an  earl 
or  a  peasant,"  was  a  ''manor,"  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
Normans  used  the  word.  The  fact  that  the  term  came 
finally  to  signify  a  petty  lordship  shows  the  extent  to 
which  the  rural  population  of  England  had  been  reduced 
to  various  degrees  of  unfreedom  and  a  dependent  state. 

By  all  the  degrading  processes  that  have  been  de- 
scribed, a  numerous  peasantry  had  been  sunk  nearly  or 
quite  to  the  condition  of  serfs  before  the  Normans  en- 
tered England.  The  harsher  temper  of  the  latter  as 
masters  added  something,  no  doubt,  to  the  weight  of 
depressing  influences,  but  not  much  to  the  influences 
themselves.  It  is  probable  that  the  smaller 
free-  freeholders  were    affected   very  little    by  Wil- 

liam's  confiscations  of  land.  Above  their  heads 
there  were  many  changes  of  "lords,"  and  the  new  for- 
eign lords  used  their  powers,  we  can  believe,  more  op- 
pressively than  the  English  lords  had  done  ;  yet  the 
difference  between  Norman  and  English  may  not  have 
been  greatly  felt. 

30.  The  Manor.  Apparently  the  manorial  system 
had  spread  by  this  time  over  the  whole  of  rural  Eng- 
land. The  entire  country,  outside  of  the  boroughs,  was 
divided  into  the  township  districts  which  the  Normans 
called  manors,  over  the  lands  and  inhabitants  of  each  of 
which  a  "lord"  exercised  certain  superior  rights  and 
powers.  The  whole  of  the  land  of  the  manor  was  culti- 
vated, for  the  most  part,  by  the  same  laborers,  on  the 
same  system,  for  the  same  crops  ;  but  part  of  it,  called 
the  "demesne,"  was  cultivated  for  the  benefit  of  the 
lord,  while  the  produce  of  the  other  part  belonged  to  the 
laborers  themselves. 


THE    ANCIENT    DIVISIONS    OF    AN    OLD    ENGLISH    MANOR. 
The   portions  cross-lined  were  acres  of  glebe  land  cultivated  for   the   priest.     Those 
stipple-marked  represent  the  dower. 


72  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.  [1085 

In  one  sense  they  were  tenants,  who  paid  rent  for  the 
land  they  used  by  labor  performed  on  the  lord's  land  ; 
but  they  were  not  free  to  throw  their  tenancy  up.  The 
lord  had  a  right  to  their  labor  on  his  land,  which  the  law 
gave  him  power  to  enforce.  The  greater  part  of  the 
tenants  who  occupied  land  on  these  terms  of  half -servi- 
tude, known  as  villani  or  villeins,  had  generally  the  use 
of   about  thirty  acres  each.     Below  them  was 

ViUeins,  Ml 

cotters, and  a  more  scrvile  class,   known  as   "cotters      or 

serfs. 

"borders,"  who  enjoyed  much  smaller  hold 
ings ;  and  still  lower  was  a  small  number  of  unfortu 
nates  in  complete  serfdom  or  slavery,  who  had  no  land  tc 
cultivate  for  themselves. 

The  manor  house  of  the  lord  stood  apart  from  the 
humble  dwellings  of  his  tenant  laborers,  which  latter 
were  clustered  on  a  village  street.  The  surrounding 
arable  or  ploughed  lands  were  divided  among  the  culti- 
vators, not  in  separate  single  fields  to  each,  but  in  long 
strips,  marked  off  from  each  other  by  narrow  "  balks  "  of 
Division  uuploughcd  turf,  cach  strip,  called  a  furlong, 
of  the  land,  containing  an  acre  or  half  an  acre  of  ground. 
The  holding  of  a  villein  or  cotter  was  made  up  of  a  num- 
ber of  such  strips,  scattered  in  different  fields,  and  all 
in  each  field  were  to  be  cultivated  alike,  with  the  same 
changes  or  rotations  of  crops.  Of  meadow  lands,  pas- 
ture lands,  and  woodlands  they  had  different  arrange- 
ments, which  sometimes  divided  them  and  sometimes 
kept  them  in  common  use. 

31.  The  Great  Domesday  Survey.  In  the  winter 
of  1085,  William  "  wore  his  crown  at  Gloucester,"  as  the 
Chronicle  tells  us,  and  had  "  deep  speech  with  his  Witan 
about  his  land,"  The  outcome  of  that  "  deep  speech  " 
in  council  was  a  great  survey,  or  inquest,  by  which  the 
land  property  of  the  kingdom  was  minutely  ascertained, 


1085]  THE   NORMAN   CONQUEST,  73 


<ar  Un  m^n  3«  jxvtn  foliy^^  ^ffcahA  rte-t.^ena^. 
*fta-B-tt.<ar  Jt>t  fa rtr. a. titl6^</tt.t>«pim.a.caj^. 


yjun\^^^>t  ,rY)^n  '%c.jU\.(JC^  Oi.'Scii!-7pcL.ic  too,* 

FACSIMILE   OF   ENTRIES   IN   DOMESDAY   BOOK. 

described  and  valued,  the  tenure  defined,  the  holders 
named,  and  their  dependents  numbered  and  classed. 
The  results  are  preserved  in  an  extraordinary  record,  "  to 
which  our  fathers  gave  the  name  of  Domesday,  the  book 
of  judgment  that  spared  no  man."  This  precious  his- 
torical document  is  the  chief  source  of  the  knowledge 
we  possess  of  the  state  of  England  in  the  Conqueror's 
reign.  According  to  its  showing,  the  population  of  the 
kingdom  when  William  made  his  inquest  was  probably 
less  —  considerably  less — than  two  millions  of  souls. 
Of  that  small  population  some  25,000  are  recorded  as 
serfs,  or  slaves,  who  had  no  legal  rights,  and  about  200,000 
appear  in  three  divisions,  designated  as  villeins,  bordarii. 


74  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH   NATION.  [1085 

and  cotarii,  or  cotters.  Within  the  next  century  or  two 
those  distinctions  disappeared,  and  partly  by 
rising  from  the  lower  ranks,  partly  by  sinking 
from  the  upper,  all  came  to  be  legally  embraced  in  one 
villein  class.  Reckoning  families,  it  appears  that  half  or 
more  of  the  English  people  had  lost  some  degree  of 
freedom,  though  keeping  a  measure  of  civil  and  of  local 
political  rights. 

As  yet,  the  population  in  towns  or  boroughs  was  quite 
small.  The  towns  were  about  eighty  in  number,  mostly 
mere  villages  in  size ;  the  important  towns  were  very 
few.  According  to  estimates  made  by  different  students 
of  Domesday  Book,  the  numbers  to  be  counted  in  it 
Towns  or  would  indicate  from  8,000  to  17,000  burgesses 
boroughs,  (fi-eemen  of  the  boroughs)  in  all.  But  neither 
London  nor  Winchester  is  included,  so  that  possibly 
there  were  20,000  or  30,000  free  citizens  of  towns  in  the 
kingdom,  representing  with  their  families  about  100,000 
or  150,000  persons. 

Generally  speaking,  the  seats  of  the  shire-moots, 
where  the  shire-reeve  —  the  sheriff  of  our  day  —  held 
his  court,  as  "the  king's  steward  and  judicial  president 
of  the  shire,"  had  become  the  most  favorable  centres  of 
town  growth.  After  the  Conquest  the  shire  was  called 
county,  its  moot  a  county  court,  and  the  importance  of 
both  in  the  organization  of  local  government  was  in- 
creased. The  old  earldoms,  which  had  been  great  gov- 
Growthof  ernorships,  or  vice-royalties,  were  suppressed, 
towns.         ^j^j  ^^Q  ^-^jg  q£  g^j.|  ^^g  given  to  the  holders  of 

certain  feudal  fiefs.  But  the  growth  of  towns  around 
shire-moots,  king's  dwellings,  and  bishop's  sees,  as  well 
as  within  the  walls  of  the  old  ''burhs,"  or  fortified  places 
of  earlier  times,  was  slow  until  the  next  century,  when 
more  active  trade  began. 


1066-1087]  THE    NORMAN    CONQUEST.  75 

32.  General  View  of  the  Conqueror's  Reign.  In 
many  ways  William  the  Conqueror  did  good  to  England. 
That  he  did  any  part  of  it  unselfishly  can  hardly  be 
believed  ;  but  he  proved  his  high  ability  as  a  sovereign 
by  pursuing  ends  for  his  own  sake  which  fell  into  agree- 
ment with  the  interests  of  the  country  at  large.  Many 
of  his  measures  tended  to  bring  about  in  time  the  state 
of  things  out  of  which  a  representative  parliament  arose. 
The  very  f  eudalistic  change  that  the  Witenagemot  under- 
went at  his  hands  made  it  finally  a  more  national  assem- 
bly, less  a  king-chosen  council,  and  prepared  it  to  receive 
the  representative  "  Commons  "  as  a  graft  on  its  baronial 
stem  ;  for  now  it  became  a  Gemot  of  the  feudatories 
(fief-holders)  of  the  realm, — of  all,  that  is,  who  held 
land  directly  from  the  king  (tenants-in-chief),  —  along 
with  bishops  and  abbots,  as  before. 

In  line  with  William's  general  policy  was  his  dealing 
with  the  church  in  England.  To  make  it  one  of  the 
supports  of  his  throne,  he  caused  the  English  bishops 
and  abbots  to  be  displaced,  as  fast  as  pretexts  could  be 
found,  and  Norman  prelates  put  into  the  high  seats,  and 
he  exercised  a  firm  control  over  ecclesiastical  affairs. 
He  did  this,  too,  in  the  face  of  the  most  pow-  Ti^e 
erful  of  popes  —  the  imperious  Hildebrand,  who  ^^^^'^^• 
bore  the  name  of  Gregory  VII.  on  the  papal  throne. 
Yet  Gregory  and  W^illiam  had  no  quarrel.  At  the  same 
time,  Lanfranc,  the  king's  wise  counsellor,  whom  he  had 
persuaded  to  come  from  Normandy  to  be  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  was  permitted  by  William  to  make  the  clergy 
independent  of  the  common  law  of  the  realm,  to  an  ex- 
tent that  proved  mischievous  in  later  times. 

Thrice  a  year,  at  Easter,  at  Pentecost,  and  at  Christ- 
mas, William,  as  the  old  phrase  had  it,  'Svore  his  crown  " 
—  sat  in  crowned  state,  that  is  —  at  Winchester,  West- 


76  THE   NORMAN-ENGLISH   NATION.     [1066-1087 

minster,  and  Gloucester,  in  turn,  to  hear  appeals  and  to 
confer  with  the  Witan.     But  in  August  of  1086 

The  Gemot     ,        ,     ,  ,  ^  ,  .    ,  ^    ,        ^ 

of  Balis-  he  held  a  greater  Gemot,  which  every  landowner 
of  weight  in  England  was  summoned  to  attend. 
It  was  not  assembled  in  any  town,  but  on  broad  Salisbury 
Plain  ;  and  there  it  was  made  a  law  that  every  freeman 
in  the  land  should  swear  fealty  to  the  king.  Then  the 
whole  great  assembly  '^  bowed  to  him  and  were  his  men," 
and  swore  to  "  be  faithful  to  him  against  all  other  men." 
It  was  thus  he  perfected  his  scheme  of  feudalism  for 
England,  —  made  it  a  centralizing  and  nationalizing  sys- 
tem, and  saved  his  kingdom  from  the  long  anarchy 
which  feudal  institutions  were  bringing  upon  Germany 
and  France. 

Of  all  the  deeds  of  William's  hard  and  heavy  hand, 
there  was  none,  not  even  the  devastation  of  Northum- 
berland, that  roused  so  bitter  a  sense  of  wrong  in  Eng- 
land as  his  expulsion  of  inhabitants  from  a  large,  fertile, 
and  populous  district  near  Winchester,  to  make  a  "  New 
Forest "  for  his  hunting.  Laying  waste  a  rebellious 
The  New  district  might  be  looked  on  in  those  days  as  a 
Forest.  proper  act  of  war ;  but  the  sweeping  of  homes 
and  families,  farms,  villages,  and  churches,  from  half  a 
thickly  settled  English  county,  to  make  a  wilderness  for 
the  king's  wild  game,  was  so  wanton  a  deed  of  tyranny 
that  it  burned  itself  deeply  into  the  memory  of  the  peo- 
ple. The  judgment  of  God  was  believed  to  have  been 
pronounced  upon  it  when  two  of  William's  sons  (Richard 
and  William  Rufus),  and  a  grandson,  were  accidentally 
slain  in  the  New  Forest  in  after  years. 

The  Conqueror  is  said  to  have  required  all  houses  to 
The  be  shut,  and  lights  and  fires  to  be  put  out,  at  the 

curfew.        ringing  of  a  bell  each  night,  and  this  is  often 
referred  to  as  one  of  his  laws  that  peculiarly  oppressed 


1083-1087]  THE    NORMAN    CONQUEST.  7/ 

the  English  people.  But  the  "  curfew,"  as  it  was  called 
(from  coiivre-feii,  to  cover  fire),  was  a  common  police  rule 
in  many  countries  at  that  time. 

33.  The  Conqueror's  Last  Years.  As  the  king  grew 
old  and  gross  and  infirm  in  body  his  temper  hardened, 
especially  after  the  death  of  his  faithful  queen,  Matilda, 
which  occurred  in  1083.  He  had  already  been  much 
troubled  by  his  eldest  son,  Robert,  who  rebelled  because 
the  duchy  of  Normandy  and  the  county  of  Maine,  in 
France,  were  not  given  up  to  him.  In  the  fighting  that 
ensued,  William  was  wounded  by  his  son's  own  hand. 
After  a  time  they  were  reconciled,  but  only  to  quarrel 
anew. 

William's  last  war  was  undertaken  in  a  savage  mood 
against  Philip  I.  of  France.  Philip  had  enraged  him  by 
an  insulting  remark  about  his  illness  and  his  unwieldy 
bulk  of  body.  He  avenged  the  insult  by  invading  the 
French  district  of  Vexin,  on  the  border  of  Nor-  wmiam's 
mandy,  and  burning  the  city  of  Mantes.  While  ^astwar. 
personally  directing  the  destructive  work,  his  horse  stum- 
bled and  gave  him  an  injury  from  which  he  died  at  the 
end  of  three  weeks  (1087). 

On  his  deathbed  William  is  said  to  have  suffered  keen 
remorse  for  the  death  and  suffering  he  had  cruelly  caused. 
He  expressed  a  wish  that  William  Rufus,  the  second 
of  his  living  sons,  should  be  chosen  to  succeed  him  in 
England.     If  Robert,  the  eldest,  must  have  Normandy 
and  Maine,  he  should  have  no  more.     To  his  wmiam's 
youngest  son,  Henry,  born  in  England,  he  gave  tie^guc- 
nothing  but  a  sum  of  money,  with  the  injunc-  cession, 
tion  :  "  Be  patient,  my  son,  and  trust  in  the  Lord,  and 
let  thine  elders  go  before  thee."      Henry  was  patient, 
and  in  due  time  all  the  heritage  of  his  elders  —  all  the 
dominions  of  his  father  —  came  to  him. 


78  THE   NORMAN    CONQUEST. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

24.   The  Duke  of  Normandy. 
Topics. 

1.  His  character. 

2.  Obstacles  in  his  path  to  power. 

3.  His  success. 

4.  His  claim  to  the  English  throne. 

5.  Continental  and  English  ideas  of  kingship. 
References.  —  William  the   Conqueror  :  Freeman,  William  the 

Conqueror  (Twelve  English  Statesmen);  Freeman,  S.  H.  N.  C, 
chs.  iv.,  vii.,  x.-xiii. ;  Gardiner,  i.  88-114;  Green,  74-81  ;  Colby, 
36-41  ;  A.  S.  Chron.,  440-463;  Ransome,  18-29  ;  Montague,  22- 
24,  28,  36,  37  ;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  ch.  ix.;  Taswell-Langmead,  47-75  ; 
H.  Taylor,  i.  228-270. 
Research  Question.  —  Why  could  not  Edward  the  Confessor 
appoint  his  successor  ? 

25.   The  Fall  of  Harold. 
Topics. 

1.  Difficulties  in  the  way  of  Harold's  defence  of  his  country. 

2.  The  attack  from  Norway. 

3.  The  condition  of  Harold's  forces. 

4.  Campaign  against  his  brother. 

5.  Battle  of  Senlac  or  Hastings. 

6.  Lack  of  leadership  among  the  English  and  the  futile  election 

by  the  Witenagemot. 

7.  Submission  to  William. 

References.  —  Battle  of  Stamford  Bridge:  Colby,  29;  Gardiner, 
i.  93-96 ;  Freeman,  S.  H.  N.  C,  61-63.  Harold :  Freeman, 
WilHam  the  Conqueror,  63-91;  Freeman,  O.  E.  H.,  297-338; 
Freeman,  S.  H.  N.  C,  44-85  ;  Gardiner,  i.  89-98  ;  Bright,  i.  22-27  '■> 
Green,  69-80;  Colby,  29-33;  A.  S.  Chron.,  421-443;  Pearson, 
i.  332-347  ;  Bulwer,  Harold  ;  Tennyson,  Harold. 

Research  Question.  —  In  what  building  was  WilHam  crowned, 
and  who  founded  it  .'* 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND    QUESTIONS.         79 

26.    The  Norman  King  on  the  English  Throne. 
Topics. 

1.  The  establishment  of  WilHam  on  the  throne. 

2.  His  policy  of  confiscation. 

3.  His  seizure  of  the  English  folk-land. 

4.  Redistribution  of  the  land  seized. 

5.  His  attitude  towards  English  institutions  and  laws. 

6.  Castle-building  of  William  and  his  lords. 

References.  —  Norman  castle-building  :  Clark,  Mediaeval  Mili- 
tary Architecture,  i.  chs.  iv.,  v. ;  Traill,  i.  300-303,  328-330. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  difference  between  the  policy 
of  conquest  and  that  of  confiscation.''  (2.)  Why  did  William  pre- 
fer to  confiscate  ?  (3.)  What  were  English  folk-lands  and  what 
is  meant  by  their  becoming  crown  lands  ?  (4.)  Does  our  govern- 
ment hold  any  lands  ?  (5.)  If  so,  what  are  they  ?  (6.)  Look  up  a 
description  of  mediaeval  castles.  (7.)  What  notable  building  of 
London  did  William  found  ?  (8.)  Its  first,  later,  and  present  uses  1 
(9.)  What  notable  building  did  he  found  at  Hastings.'' 

27.  The  Completion  of  the  Conquest. 
Topics. 

1.  The  revolt  in  Northumbria. 

2.  The  revolt  in  the  fen  country. 

3.  War  against  Scotland. 

4.  Edgar  and  Margaret  at  the  Scottish  court. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Point  out  on  the  map  the  "fen" 
country.  (2.)  Tell  what  you  can  of  Hereward.  (Bright,  i.  50-51.) 
(3.)  Where  does  Shakespeare  mention  this  King  Malcolm  of 
Scotland? 

28.  The  Conqueror's  Feudal  System. 
Topics. 

1.  'The  change  made  by  William  in  feudalism. 

2.  Terms  of  regranting  land. 

a.  His  reservation  of  judicial  rights  and  protection  of  the 

courts. 

b.  Every  freeman  the  king's  man. 

c.  No  large  fiefs. 

3.  Assistance  given  the  king  by  the  people  against  the  barons. 
References.  —  Feudal  system:    Gardiner,    i.  81,   104,  113,  116; 

Bright,  i.  28-31,  36,  37;   Green,   83,  84;  Green,   H.  E.  P.,  i.  35, 


8o  THE  NORMAN   CONQUEST. 

n-,  7^f  83-112,  122-125;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  251-270;  Taswell- 
Langmead,  7,  49  sqq.,  76,  103  ;  Montague,  ch.  iii.  ;  H.  Taylor,  i. 
222-225,  237-239. 

29.   The  Social  Effects  of  the  Norman  Conquest. 
Topics. 

1.  Changes  in  the  early  democratic  state  of  society. 

2.  The  influences  causing  these. 

a.  The  Danegeld. 

d.  The  tax-collecting  power  of  the  lords  and  its  results. 

3.  Influence  of  William's  confiscations  on  the  small  freeholders. 
Reference.  —  Maitland,  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  Essay  i, 

sect.  6. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  are  taxes  like  the  Danegeld 
once  imposed  hard  to  get  rid  of  .^     (2.)  Why  is  it  better  for  the 
state  to  collect  its  own  taxes  ?     (3.)  Find  out  what  you  can  of 
farming  the  taxes  in  France. 

30.    The  Manor. 
Topics. 

1.  Extent  of  the  system. 

2.  Cultivation  of  the  soil. 

a.  The  demesne. 

d.   Terms  of  tenancy. 

c.  Classes  of  holders. 

d.  Allotments  of  land  and  rotation  of  crops. 
References.  —  The  manor  :  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  ch.  iii.; 

Green,  245,  246;  Gibbins,  7-22;  Montague,  34;  Stubbs,  C.  H., 
i.  273,  399,  400;  H.  Taylor,  i.  237,  252-254,  266,  267;  Maitland, 
i.  book  i.  582  sqq. ;  Ashley,  i.  ch.  i. 
Research  Question.  —  Does  the  country  lord  live  at  present  in 
the  village  with  his  tenants  ? 

31.   The  Great  Domesday  Survey. 
Topics. 

1.  Information  conveyed. 

a.  On  the  land  property  of  the  kingdom. 

d.   Concerning  its  tenure. 

c.   On  the  classification  of  its  holders  and  dependents. 

2.  Classes  of  the  population. 

3.  Later  classification. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.        8l 

4.  Population  of  towns  and  boroughs. 

5.  Centres  of  town  growth. 

References.  —  Domesday  Book:  A.  S.  Chron.,  458,  459;  Colby, 
38;  Gardiner,  i.  in,  112;  Bright,  i.  38,  55  ;  Green,  85  ;  Ransome, 
27,  28;  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  12,  32,  34-36,  50;  Green, 
H.  E.  P.,  i,  124;  Traill,  i.  236-240  ;  H.  Taylor,  i.  264-267  ;  Rogers, 
18;  Montague,  28,  29;  Maitland,  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond. 
Villeins,  cotters,  and  serfs  :  Gardiner,  i.  31,  69-72,  102,  168  ;  Ash- 
ley, i.  ch.  i. ;  Montague,  38,  89,  90;  Gibbins,  13,  17,  41  ;  Stubbs, 
C.  H.,  i.  426-431  ;  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  33-40;  Green,  H. 
E.  P.,  i.  214-217  ;  Guest,  88  ;  Vinogradoff,  Villainage  in  England; 
Maitland,  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond,  36-66 ;  Traill,  i.  356- 
360. 

32.    General  View  of  the  Conqueror's  Reign. 
Topics. 

1.  William's  policy  and  the  good  resulting. 

a.  Change  in  the  Witenagemot. 

b.  His  dealings  with  the  church. 

c.  His  gemot  on  SaHsbury  Plain. 

2.  The  New  Forest. 

3.  The  curfew. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  dignitary  presides  over  the 
church  at  Canterbury.^  (2.)  How  docs  a  cathedral  differ  from 
other  churches  ? 

33.    The  Conqueror's  Last  Years. 
Topics. 

1.  William's  later  characteristics. 

2.  Contest  with  his  son. 

3.  His  last  war  and  his  death. 

4.  Provisions  of  his  will. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE    FUSING    OF    THE    NEW    NATION. 

Norman    Kings:    William    II. —  Henry    I.  —  Stephen. 

1087-1 154. 

34.  The  English  Adoption  of  their  Norman  Kings. 
As  the  Conqueror  had  willed,  his  eldest  son,  Robert,  a 
good-natured  and  careless  man,  received  Normandy,  and 
the  English  crown  was  given  to  the  second  son,  William 
II.,  called  Ruf'us  or  the  Red,  because  of  the  ruddiness  of 
his  face.  The  English  were  pleased  with  this  arrange- 
ment, which  parted  England  from  Normandy  and  gave 
them  a  king  who  was  not  at  the  same  time  a  foreign 
prince ;  but  many  Norman  barons,  having  fiefs  in  both 
countries,  preferred  to  hold  them  under  a  single  lord, 
and  liked  Robert  better  than  William,  whose  temper 
was  known  to  be  hard.  Hence  the  Normans  under- 
took to  put  Robert  on  the  English  throne,  and  were  de- 
feated by  the  English,  who  rallied  to  William's  defence. 

By  this  action  of  the  English  people  they  accepted, 
in  a  practical  way,  the  Norman  Conquest,  and  adopted 
the  new  race  of  kings  as  their  own.  At  the  same  time, 
they  really  took  back  their  own  rights  over  the  crown  as 
something  to  be  given  or  withheld  by  themselves.  It 
was  thus  a  very  fortunate  division  that  had  come  about 
between  the  new  monarchy  and  the  new  nobility ;  for  it 
gave  the  English  an  opportunity  to  make  their  strength 
felt,  by  taking  sides  in  the  conflict  between  the  two. 

35.  The   Red   King's  Wickedness.     No  sooner  was 


1089] 


FUSING    OF    THE    NEW   NATION. 


33 


William  Rufus  settled  firmly  on  the  throne  by  his  Eng- 
lish subjects,  than  the  baseness  of  his  character  began  to 
be  shown.  He  scoffed  at  the  promise  of  just  government 
he  had  made,  and  despised  even  the  forms  of  religion 
and  law,  which  his  father  had  treated  with  great  respect. 
When  Lanfranc  died,  in   1089,  an  unscrupulous  priest, 


A  king's  deathbed,  bishops  and  abbots  attending,  from  a  twelfth 

CENTURY    MS. 

Ranulf  Flambard  (translated  Firebrand,  or  Torch),  be- 
came the  king's  chief  minister,  and  delighted  him  by  the 
ingenuity  of  his  contrivances  for  extorting  money  from 
rich  and  poor.  He  meddled  with  the  local  moots,  which 
the  Conqueror  had  preserved,  and  nearly  destroyed  those 
important  courts  for  a  time,  by  his  attempts  to  make 
them  part  of  his  machinery  of  oppression  and  fraud. 
He  robbed  the  church,  and  corrupted  it  by  selling  its 
sacred  offices,  its  bishoprics  and  abbacies,  to  mercenary 
buyers,  who  paid  great  sums. 


84  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1090-1097 

Falling  sick,  and  being  in  fear  of -death,  the  king  was 
persuaded  to  an  act  of  penitence  which  gave  the  church 

a  very  noble  head.     Anselm,  famed  through  all 

Europe  as  a  scholar,  philosopher,  and  saint,  — 
a  Lombard,  as  Lanfranc  had  been,  —  was  appointed 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  Lanfranc's  seat.  But  when 
his  health  returned,  William  went  back  to  his  evil  ways, 
and  thwarted  the  good  Anselm  in  all  that  he  tried  to  do, 
until  the  primate  in  despair  quitted  England  (1097),  and 
did  not  return  while  the  oppressor  lived,  which,  fortu- 
nately, was  not  long. 

The  great  sums  of  money  which  the  Red  King  wrung 
from  his  subjects  were  wasted  on  the  vilest  of  courts,  or 
spent  in  extravagant  pay  to  soldiers  hired  from  abroad, 
who  gave  his  tyranny  its  only  support,  and  whose  inso- 
lence to  the  people  appears  to  have  had   no   bounds. 

That  English  and  Norman  subjects  should  lie 
and  Nor-      together  under  the  feet  of  so  hateful  a  wretch 

for  twelve  years  would  seem  strange,  if  we  did 
not  remember  that  combination  between  them  was  hardly 
possible  at  that  day.  It  had  been  easy  for  the  English 
to  help  a  Norman-born  king  against  his  Norman  barons  ; 
but,  until  the  Normans  should  cease  to  be  a  Norman 
party  in  the  state,  and  should  become  Englishmen  with 
other  Englishmen,  there  could  be  no  common  resistance 
to  the  king. 

36.  Reunion  with  Normandy.  The  English  had  up- 
held William  Rufus  against  Robert  in  order  to  separate 
England  from  Normandy,  and  if  the  separation  had 
lasted  they  might  have  felt  that  they  had  some  compen- 
sation for  the  afflictions  of  his  reign.  But  that  solace 
was  denied  to  them.  Half  of  Normandy  was  wrested 
by  William  from  his  loose-handed  brother  in  the  third 
year  of  the  former's   reign,   and   five  years  later,  by  a 


T095] 


FUSING    OF   THE    NEW   NATION. 


85 


KEEP    OF    ROCHESTER    CASTLE. 


strange  transaction,  the  remainder  came  into  his  hands. 
Peter  the  Hermit  was  then  exciting  the  Christians  of 
Europe,  by  appeals  for  the  rescue  of  Jerusalem  and  the 
sepulchre  of  Christ  from  the  Mohammedan  Turks ; 
the  first  crusading  expedition  was  being  prepared,  and 
Robert  of  Normandy  was  eager  to  join  it  with  a  com- 
pany of  knights.  Lacking  money,  he  applied  to  his 
English  brother  for  a  loan,  and  obtained  it  by  the  mort- 
gage of  his  duchy.  The  Red  King  took  possession  of 
the  duchy,  while  Robert  went  happily  to  the  Holy 
Land,  doing  better  as  a  crusading  knight  than  he  had 


S6  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH   NATION.     [1091-1100 

done  as  a  reigning  duke.  So  England  and  Normandy 
were  again  linked  together,  but  not  as  before ;  for  the 
duchy  was  now  an  appendix  to  the  kingdom. 

37.  The  Red  King's  Wars.  William's  appetite  for 
dominion  was  now  sharpened,  and  he  began  ambitious 
wars  in  France,  where  he  partly  succeeded  in  recovering 
the  county  of  Maine,  which  Robert  had  lost.  Before 
these  foreign  wars  occurred,  he  had  been  several  times 
in  conflict  with  the  Scotch  and  the  Welsh.     Malcolm  of 

Scotland,  makino^  barbarous   forays   as^ain  and 

Scotland.  .      .      '  ,  ^T        ,  1       1        1  i:       n 

agam  mto  unhappy  Northumberland,  was  nnally 
surprised  and  slain,  and  his  son  Edward  died  with  him. 
His  saintly  queen,  the  English  Margaret,  soon  followed 
him  to  the  grave.  Then  a  Scotch  party,  jealous  of  the 
English  who  had  surrounded  Malcolm,  drove  them  from 
the  court ;  but,  in  1097,  William  Rufus  sent  an  expedi- 
tion into  the  northern  kingdom  which  placed  Margaret's 
son  Edgar  on  the  Scottish  throne.  In  due  order,  Edgar 
was  succeeded  by  his  brothers,  Alexander  and  David, 
and  by  descendants  of  David  for  two  hundred  years. 
Against  the  Welsh,  William  conducted  three  cam- 
paigns, with  not  much  success  ;  but  by  diligent 
^^^^^'  castle-building  in  the  Welsh  border  lands  he 
did  more  than  his  predecessors  towards  curbing  that  in- 
domitable British  race. 

Not  in  castle-building  alone,  but  generally  as  a  builder, 
the  second  William  surpassed  his  father,  and  the  only 
worthy  monuments  of  his  reign  are  found  in  surviving 
westmin-  examples  of  his  work.  Notable  among  them  is 
sterHau.  ^j^g  venerable  Westminster  Hall,  which  he  built 
for  his  palace  near  the  London  of  that  day,  and  which 
has  been  the  scene  of  many  great  assemblies  and  events. 

38.  The  Red  King's  Death.  The  wicked  reign  of 
the  wicked  king  was  brought  to  a  tragical  and  mysterious 


iioo] 


FUSING   OF    THE    NEW   NATION. 


87 


end  in  its  thirteenth  year.  While  hunting  in  the  New 
Forest,  in  the  summer  of  the  year  iioo,  he  was  stricken 
by  an  arrow  and  died  where  he  fell.  Whether  hatred 
or  accident  aimed  the  shaft  is  not  to  be  known.  There 
were  many  different  stories  afloat,  and  most  of  them 
named  Walter  Tirrel,  a  companion  of  the  king,  as  hav- 
ing made  the  fatal  shot  by  mischance ;  but  the  fact  is  in 
doubt.  Nor  need  we  care  to  know.  As  the  best  histo- 
rian of  the  Red  King's  reign  has  said,  "  The  arrow,  by 
whomsoever  shot,  set  England  free  from  oppression  such 


WESTMINSTER    HALL. 


as  she  never  felt  before  or  after  at  the  hand  of  a  single 
man ;"  and  we  can  be  satisfied  to  dismiss  him  with  that 
parting  word. 

39.  The  Beginning  of  the  Reign  of  Henry  I.  Hap- 
pily William  Rufus  had  never  married,  and  he  left  no 
son  who  could  claim  his  crown.  His  elder  brother, 
Robert,  was    in    Italy,  journeying  homeward   from    the 


88 


THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1100-1106 


J 


Holy  Land.  By  good  fortune  the  younger  brother, 
Henry,  was  in  England,  and  near  at  hand.  The  news 
reached  him  quickly,  and  he  made  haste  to  Winchester, 
where,  long  before  opposition  could  gather  to  any  head, 
he  had  secured  an  election  to  the  throne, 
with  possession  of  the  royal  treasure  or 
"hoard."  His  presence  and  his  prompti- 
tude were  advantages  in  his  favor,  but  he 
found  a  greater  in  his  birth.  He  was  the 
only  son  born  to  the  Conqueror  in  England. 
He  was  reared  in  England,  was  taught  Eng- 
lish speecfi,  and  his  father  had  sought  in 
every  way  to  give  him  the  character  of  an 
English  "atheling"  in  English  eyes.  The 
policy  was  wise,  and  it  had  its  effect. 

Again  the  Norman  barons,  who  had  rees- 
tablished Robert  in  Normandy,  tried  to  bring 
him  to  the  English  throne,  and  again  they 
were  opposed  by  the  English  people,  who 
stood  by  Henry  and  defeated  the  attempt. 
Anselm,  who  had  returned  to  England,  joined 
with  other  good  men  on  both  sides  in  mak- 
ing peace  for  the  time ;  but  Henry,  a  few  years  later, 
retaliated  Robert's  invasion,  defeated  him  at  Tinchebrai 
(September,  1106),  took  him  prisoner  and  held  him  in 
captivity  for  twenty-eight  years. 

The  relations  of  Normandy  to  England  were  then 
exactly  reversed.  By  an  English  conquest  of  Normandy, 
the  sovereignty  of  the  two  countries  was  gathered  again 
English  ii^to  ouc  hand.  Tinchebrai  balanced  the  scale 
against  Senlac  ;  for  Tinchebrai  was  an  English 
victory.  Henry's  subjects  of  English  and  Nor- 
man blood  fought  together  in  the  battle,  under  the  com- 
mon   English    name,   and    nothing,   probably,   since  the 


HENRY   I. 


conquest 
of  Nor- 
mandy. 


IIOO-II35]       FUSING    OF    THE    NEW    NATION.  89 

Normans  entered  England,  had  done  so  much  to  bring 
them  together  in  feehng.  Wars  with  France,  which  fol- 
lowed, kept  men  of  the  two  races  side  by  side,  in  the 
same  ranks,  and  continued  the  fusing  process.  Though 
Duke  Robert  was  helpless,  he  had  an  energetic  son, 
whose  cause  was  taken  up  by  the  overlord  of  the  duchy, 
the  king  of  the  French  ;  but  Henry's  hold  on  Normandy 
was  not  to  be  shaken  off. 

40.  The  Character  of  Henry  and  his  Reign.  In 
England,  Henry's  rule  was  established  so  firmly  that, 
after  his  one  contest  with  the  Norman  barons,  the  peace 
of  the  country  was  undisturbed  throughout  his  long 
reign.  He  won  the  good-will  of  the  English,  still  more 
than  he  possessed  it  at  first,  by  marrying  Edith  (called 
Matilda,  or  Maud,  after  her  marriage),  a  daughter  of  the 
English  Queen  Margaret  of  Scotland,  and  great-grand- 
daughter of  Edmund  Ironside,  who  represented,  there- 
fore, the  old  English  royal  line.  Henry  had  pleased 
them  still  more  by  a  Charter  which  he  signed  on  his 
coronation  day,  setting  forth  the  rights  of  the  people 
that  he  held  himself  bound  to  respect  as  king. 

It  was  the  first  of  a  series  of  what  are  looked  upon  as 
the  charters  of  English  liberty ;  the  first  of  the  written 
instruments  which  mark  stages  in  the  growth  and  defini- 
tion of  the  English  constitution.     We  shall  see 

^  ^  ^,  The  Char- 

it  expanded  after  a  time  into  the  Great  Char-  terof 

^  r  -ir'  Henry  I. 

ter,  extorted  in  the  next  century  from  Kmg 
John.  Concerning  the  rights  most  valued  and  the  wrongs 
most  complained  of  in  that  feudal  age,  it  furnished  a 
statement  of  what  the  people  should  expect  from  their 
kino;  and  from  the  lords  whom  he  controlled,  and  it  gave 
them  a  ground  for  equal  or  greater  claims  under  future 
kings.  It  was,  therefore,  a  document  of  high  importance 
and  very  precious  to  England. 


90  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1100-1135 

It  cannot  be  said  that  Henry  was  always  faithful  to 

his   charter ;  but  he  never  wantonly  set  it  aside.     He 

was  far  from  being  an  ideal   king ;  yet   hardly  another 

government  could  have  been  more  useful  to  England  at 

that   time  than   the  reio^n  of  peace  and   order 

Henry's  .  . 

long  reign,  wliich  he  gavc  it  for  thirty-fivc  ycars.  He  was 
arbitrary  and  hard  in  temper,  selfish  in  his 
aims,  like  all  of  his  race,  and  less  statesmanlike  in  mind 
than  his  father ;  but  he  had  a  shrewd  business-man's 
talent  and  a  firm  will.  His  education  was  beyond  that 
of  most  princes  in  his  time,  and  so  remarkable  to  his 
contemporaries,  who  expected  none  but  clerks  (that  is, 
the  clergy)  to  read  and  write,  that  they  called  him  Henry 
Beauclerk,  or  Henry  the  Scholar. 

It  is  a  fact  that  Henry  gave  up  few  of  the  practices  of 
William  Rufus,  in  the  matter  of  wringing  money  from  his 
subjects ;  but  he  made  those  practices  regular  and  exact, 
instead  of  capricious,  and  they  were  easier  to  bear.  He 
demanded  regularity  and  system  in  everything,  and  that 
went  far  towards  better  government,  even  if 
isticsof  the  system  was  despotic  and  harsh.  He  found 
a  minister  to  his  liking  in  a  priest  named  Roger, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  and  the  administration 
of  government  was  better  organized  than  ever  before, 
especially  on  the  financial  side. 

41.  The  Exchequer,  the  Justiciar,  the  Chancellor, 
the  King's  Court.  The  numberless  fees,  dues,  and  fines 
from  which  most  of  the  king's  revenue  came  were  placed 
by  Henry  under  the  control  of  a  court  or  council,  to 
which  some  wit  of  the  time  gave  the  name  of  the  Ex- 
The  chequer,  because  the  covering  of   the  table  at 

Exchequer,  ^yi^id^  accounts  wcrc  received  was  so  chequered 
by  lines  as  to  suggest  the  idea  of  a  game  of  chess  be- 
tween the  treasurer  and  the   sheriffs  who  accounted  to 


IIOO-II35]      FUSING    OF    THE    NEW    NATION. 


91 


EXCHEQUER  TABLE,  AS  DEPICTED  IN  THE  "  RED  BOOK  OF  THE 
EXCHEQUER  COURT  OF  IRELAND,"  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 

him.  It  is  thought  that  the  Hues  drawn  on  the  table 
were  to  aid  the  rude  reckoning  of  those  days.  The 
name  Exchequer  still  clings  to  the  English  administra- 
tion of  finance. 

As  chief  minister,  Roger  of  Salisbury  (like  Flambard 
before  him)  was  called  Justiciar.  He  had  previously 
been  the  king's  chancellor,  which  signified  that  he  was 
at  the  head  of  the  secretaries, — the  clerical  Thechan- 
force  which  dispatched  the  business  of  the  ^^^^°^- 
king.  The  title  is  supposed  to  have  come  originally 
from   the  cancclli  or  screen  behind  which  the   secreta- 


92  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1100-1135 

ries  worked.  It  survives  in  two  of  the  highest  EngHsh 
offices,  —  that  of  the  Lord  Chancellor  and  that  of  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  —  as  well  as  in  connection 
with  other  dignified  posts. 

The  first  appearance  of  a  King's  Court  (Curia  Regis), 
distinctly  formed,  is  in  Henry's  reign.  All  of  the  later 
English  courts  having  a  national  jurisdiction  grew  out  of 
this  tribunal,  by  the  subdivision  of  its  duties  from  time 
to  time.  The  King's  Court,  in  origin,  was  itself  a  sub- 
division of  the  Great  Council,  —  by  which  name  the 
English  Witenagemot  was  becoming  more  commonly 
The  King's  knowu.  The  creation  of  such  courts,  represent- 
Court.  -j-^g  ^  centralized  authority,   tended  greatly  to 

consolidate  the  royal  power,  and  to  lessen  the  impor- 
tance of  the  local  courts  or  moots  ;  but  it  tended  also 
to  a  national  consolidation,  and  to  the  weakening  of  the 
power  of  the  barons,  from  whom  the  people  had  more 
to  fear  than  from  the  king.  In  the  end,  the  greatest 
of  all  the  defences  of  popular  rights,  against  even  the 
king  himself,  were  often  found  in  the  king's  courts. 
The  same  reign  in  which  the  royal  courts  arose  saw  the 
courts  of  the  hundred  and  the  shire,  which  William 
Rufus  had  nearly  extinguished,  revived  by  a  special  ordi- 
nance of  the  king. 

.  42.  Development  of  English  Towns  and  their  Trade. 
In  Henry's  reign,  for  the  first  time,  English  towns  are 
found  to  be  showing  germs  of  the  character  in  which 
they  grew  to  their  later  importance,  politically  and  com- 
mercially, as  communities  distinctly  formed  and  having  a 
voice  and  influence  of  their  own.  In  its  older  character, 
the  English  town  has  been  described  as  "  simply  several 
townships  packed  tightly  together,"  or  as  *' a  hundred, 
smaller  in  extent  and  thicker  in  population  than  other 
hundreds."     But    now    it    had    begun    to  be  something 


IIOO-1I35]       FUSING    OF   THE    NEW    NATION.  93 

different  from  townships  and  hundreds,  as  an  "  institu- 
tion "  in  the  kingdom. 

The  immigration,  after  the  Conquest,  of  foreign  mer- 
chants and  craftsmen,  from  Normandy  and  from  other 
parts  of  France,  and  likewise  from  Flanders,  had  caused 
much  of  the  change.  They  brought  in  a  livelier  spirit  of 
enterprise,  finer  skill  in  many  arts,  and  various 

-  r  1  IT  T        1  Foreigners 

refinements  of  manner  and  lite,     in  the  towns,  inEng- 
the  fusion  of  this  foreign  population  with  the  na- 
tive English  came  sooner  than  elsewhere,  and  had  begun 
in  Henry's  time  to  show  its  deeper  effects.     His  orderly 
government,  moreover,  gave  encouragements  to  industry 
and  trade  that  had  not  been  equally  known  before. 

Even  the  local  trade  of  the  country  at  this  period  must 
have  been  very  scant.  The  roads  were,  perhaps,  no 
worse  —  possibly  they  were  better  —  than  they  Markets 
became  in  later  times  through  neglect,  but  ex-  and  fairs, 
changes  between  one  part  of  the  country  and  another 
were  not  widely  made.  Each  town,  by  royal  grant  or  by 
ancient  usage,  had  its  jealously  guarded  right  to  a  mar- 
ket, and  its  fixed  market  days,  for  neighborhood  traffic. 
For  foreign  trade,  a  few  great  annual  fairs  were  estab- 
lished by  royal  charter,  the  most  important  being  at 
Stourbridge,  near  Cambridge,  which  was  especially  the 
market  of  trade  with  Flanders  and  Germany,  and  at 
Winchester,  which  was  convenient  for  the  trade  with 
France.  A  chronicler  of  the  time,  Henry  of  Huntingdon, 
mentions  (115 5)  the  exports  to  Germany  from  England 
as  being  lead,  tin,  fish,  meat,  fat  cattle,  fine  wool,  and  jet. 

43.  Language,  Literature,  Religion,  Art.  There 
seems  to  be  no  doubt  of  the  fact  that  England  was 
prepared,  in  the  time  of  Henry  L,  for  a  new  career  of 
prosperity ;  and  the  fact  lends  more  pitifulness  to  the 
state  of  things  that  we  shall  find  in  the  next  reign.     But 


94  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1100-1135 

the  forward  movement  of  the  time  was  more  in  practical 
than  in  intellectual  ways.  The  English  mind  had  been 
making  little  show  of  activity  in  thought  or  imagination 
for  more  than  a  century,  and  if  it  was  stirred  by  the  Con- 
quest, it  was  silenced  at  the  same  time  in  its  own  proper 


NAVE   OF   ST.    ALBAN'S   ABBEY    CHURCH    BUILT    BETWEEN    IO77    AND    IO93. 

speech.  Of  native  literature  in  the  English  tongue  there 
was  no  more.  The  old  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  —  most 
precious  of  records  —  had  been  continued  by  pious  pens, 
first  in  the  monastery  at  Worcester,  and  finally  at  Peter- 
borough ;  but  it  stands  monumentally  alone. 

A  very  marked  wakening  of  interest  in  historical  work 
Historical  ^^^  taken  place,  and  several  English  chron- 
works.  iclers  were  engaged  on  writings  that  are  inval- 
uable ;  but  every  one  of  them  —  Orderic  Vitalis,  William 
of  Malmesbury,  Henry  of  Huntingdon,  Florence  of 
Worcester,  Edmer,  who  wrote  the  life  of  Anselm,  and 


IIOO-II35]       FUSING    OF    THE    NEW    NATION. 


95 


others  —  wrote  in  Latin  ;  none  of  them  in  the  language 
to  which  he  was  born.  Latin  had  become  the  language 
of  the  learned,  and  French  remained  the  language  of 
the  Norman  aristocracy  and  the  court. 

English  held  its  ground  among  the  people  at  large, 
and  forced  itself  in  the  end  on  both  the  lordly  and  the 
learned ;  but,  for  a  long  period,  it  had  no  literature  to 
refine  and  adorn  it.  It  took  up  many  words  from  the 
Norman-French,  but  was  not  so  much  affected  in  that 
way  during  the  first  generations  after  the  Conquest  as  it 
was  at  a  later  day. 

The  fashionable  literature  of  the  age  was  that  of  the 

Chansons  de  Gestes  —  the  epical 
romances  and  songs  of  the  French 
trouveurs  and  Provencal  trouba- 
dours, which  were  being  copiously 
produced.  A  Welshman,  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth,  presently  chansons 
contributed  a  remarkable  ^e  Gestes. 
collection  of  materials  for  such  ro- 
mances, borrowed  from  the  Welsh 
or  Breton  legends  of  King  Arthur, 
and  offered  as  true  history ;  but  it 
was  in  Latin  that  he  wrote. 

One  of  the  wakenings  of  the 
time  was  in  religious  feeling,  which 
found  its  satisfaction  in  a  stricter  monastic  life.  From 
Citeaux,  in  Burgundy  (now  included  in  France),  came  a 
new  order  of  monks,  called  Cistercians  from  the  place  of 
their  origin,  or  White  Monks  from  their  dress,  cister- 
who  adopted  rules  and  practices  more  severe  "*''^- 
than  those  of  the  older  orders.  Whereas  most  of  the 
previous  monasteries  had  been  planted  in  towns,  or  near 
them,  the  Cistercians  sought   solitary  places.     Tintern 


CISTERCIAN    MONK. 


96 


THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1100-1135 


DURHAM    CATHEDRAL. 
Built  mostly  in  the  reign  of  Henry  I. 


Abbey  and  Fountains  Ab- 
bey were  among  the  great  religious  houses  that  they 
founded  in  England,  beginning  usually  in  a  humble  way, 
but  building,  as  their  numbers  grew  and  their  riches 
were  increased  by  liberal  gifts,  until  vast  and  magnificent 
piles  were  reared,  which  we  can  see  in  their  ruin  to-day. 
Monastic  ^hc  monastic  structures  in  towns  were  gener- 
buiidings.  g^||y  demolished  at  a  later  time,  to  make  way 
for  other  buildings,  or  else  turned  to  other  uses ;  but 
these  secluded  Cistercian  abbeys,  though  sadly  despoiled 
and  broken,  were  left  at  last,  in  many  cases,  to  grow 
beautiful  in  their  decay.  A  majority  of  the  ruined  abbeys 
now  found  in  England  were  built  by  the  Cistercian  order 
of  monks. 

The  great  age  of  church-building  in  England  had 
opened.  Many  of  the  most  majestic  cathedrals  were 
already  rising  slowly  from  their  foundations,  to  be  carried 


III8-II35]      FUSING   OF   THE    NEW   NATION.  97 

on  through  long  periods,  by  many  successive  builders, 
with  many  changes  and  modifications  of  plan,  with  more 
or  less  reconstruction  of  parts,  as  time  injured  or  con- 
demned the  older  work,  until  they  stood  as  we  see  them 
at  the  present  time. 

44.  Henry's  Mischievous  Plans  for  the  Succession 
to  himself.  Henry's  good  queen,  Edith  or  Matilda,  died 
in  1 118,  leaving  to  him  a  daughter,  named  Matilda,  and 
a  young  son,  William.  The  daughter  was  already  mar- 
ried to  the  Emperor-King  Henry  V.,  of  Germany.  Upon 
the  son,  as  his  destined  successor,  the  ambitious  hopes 
of  Henry  were  fixed,  until  a  sudden  and  terrible  calamity 
cast  them  down. 

In  1 1 20,  as  the  king  and  the  young  prince  were  re- 
turning to  England  from  a  successful  campaign  in  France, 
the  latter  embarked  at  Honfleur  in  a  vessel  named  the 
White  Ship,  while  the  king  set   sail  in  another.     The 
prince,  then  a  lad  of  seventeen,  had  a  merry 
company  of  young  people  with  him,  and  they  sinking 
shared  their  wine  too  freely  with  the  crew  of  wmte 
the  ship.     The  vessel  was  heedlessly  run  upon 
a  reef  and  sunk,  and  one  man  only  was  saved,  of  all  on 
board.     The  king,  overwhelmed  by  the  catastrophe,  is 
said  never  to  have  smiled  again. 

From  that  time,  Henry's  aim  was  to  secure  the  crown, 
after  his  own  death,  to  his  daughter  Matilda,  the  empress, 
who  became  a  widow  in   1125.     It  was  a  most  unwise 
scheme,   dictated   by  a  selfish  pride  ;   and  he 
made  it  worse  by  forcing  his  daughter,  against  piantage- 
her  will,  and  against  the  wish  of  his  subjects, 
to  marry  Geoffrey,  son  of  the  Count  of  Anjou,  in  France.^ 

1  Geoffrey  was  called  Plantagenet,  from  his  custom  of  wearing  a 
sprig  of  broom  {planta  genista)  in  his  cap  ;  and  the  name  passed 
to  a  long  line  of  his  descendants  on  the  English  throne. 


98 


THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION. 


["35 


Years  of  frightful  disorder  and  civil  war  were  the  con- 
sequence, and  many  of  the  good  fruits  of  Henry's  peace- 
ful reign  were  devoured. 

45.  Stephen  of  Blois  on  the  Throne.  Henry  I. 
died  in  Normandy  on  the  ist  of  December,  1135.  His 
brother  Robert  had  died  in  his  imprisonment  the  previ- 
ous year,  and  Robert's  son  William  had  been  dead  since 
1 128.  Of  lawful  descendants  of  the  Conqueror  there 
remained  only  Matilda,  with  two  infant  sons,  born  since 
her  marriage  with  Geoffrey  Plantagenet,  and  three  sons 

left  by  Adela,  one 
of  the  Conqueror's 
daughters,  who  had 
married  the  Count  of 
Blois,  in  France.  Ac- 
cording to  the  English 
doctrine  of  kingship, 
these  heirs  of  William 
I.  might  be  looked 
upon  as  having,  not 
rival  claims  to  the  va- 
cant throne,  but  rival 
claims  to  be  preferred 
in  the  election  of  a 
successor  to  the 
throne. 

If  Matilda  had  mar- 
ried differently,  or  not 
at  all,  or  if  her  eldest 
son  had  been  old  enough  to  have  her  rights  passed  on 
to  him,  it  is  quite  possible  that  the  wish  of  her 

Stephen's  1111  r  a        • 

claim  to       father  would  have  been   fulfilled.     As  it  was, 

the  crown.  r     a   i    1        <-         i  r    t^i    • 

one   01   the   sons   or  Adela,   Stephen   oi   lilois, 
who  had  been    reared   at   the   English   court,  who  had 


STEPHEN. 


II36] 


FUSING    OF    THE    NEW   NATION. 


99 


seemed  almost  to  be  recognized  by  Henry  as  an  adopted 
son,  and  who  had  won  popularity  by  genial  ways,  hastened 
over  to  England  on  his  uncle's  death  and  obtained  the 
crown.  He  was  chosen  to  the  kingship  at  London  by 
a  body  which  seems  to  have  been  made  up  in  part  of 
leading  men  of  the  city,  and  partly  of  notable  barons 
and  bishops,  representing  the  kingdom  at  large.  Roger 
of  Salisbury  was  one  of  the  latter.  On  the  22d  of  De- 
cember Stephen  was  crowned. 

46.  Civil  War  and  Anarchy.  It  was  seen  very  soon 
that  the  qualities  which  made  Stephen  popular  as  a  cour- 
tier and  a  knight  were  not  the  qualities  that,  in  those 
rude  days,  could  make  a  good  king.  There  was  no  firm- 
ness in  his  rule,  no  steadiness  in  his  aims.  He  was  first 
under  one  influence  and  then  under  another,  and  barons 
of  the  turbulent  class  were  not  long  in  finding  that  they 
could  have  the  disorder  they  loved.  They  multiplied 
and  strengthened  their  castles,  hired 
troops  of  armed  retainers,  defied  royal  au- 
thority, began  undertakings  of  robbery 
and  private  warfare,  and  compelled  the 
better-disposed  to  arm  and  fortify  in  self- 
defence.  The  reign  of  law  which  Henry 
had  established  was  rapidly  broken  up. 

The  process  of  ruin  was  helped  by 
the  partisans  of  Matilda.  David,  King 
of  Scotland,  her  mother's  brother,  ap- 
peared as  a  champion  of  her  cause  soon 
after  the  reign  began.  By  giving  up 
Cumberland  and  Carlisle  to  him,  Stephen 
bought  a  peace  which  did  not  last ;  but 
David's  ravages  in  unhappy  Northum- 
berland were  finally  stopped,  not  by  Stephen,  but  by  the 
Archbishop  of  York  and  the  chief  men  of  the  north. 


THE    STANDARD. 


lOO  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1138-1144 

They   assembled   their   forces    on    Cowton    Moor,    near 
North  Allerton,  and  there,  on  the  22d  of  Au- 

The  Battle 

of  the  gust,    1 1 38,  a   very  famous   battle,   called   the 

Battle  of  the  Standard,  was  fought.  It  took 
its  name  from  a  curious  great  standard,  mounted  on 
wheels,  bearing  the  consecrated  banners  of  several 
churches,  and  surmounted  by  a  silver  pyx  (vase),  con- 
taining the  Host  (the  sacramental  bread  of  the  Lord's 
Supper),  which  stood  in  the  midst  of  the  English  army. 
The  battle  resulted  in  a  fearful  defeat  and  slaughter  of 
the  Scots. 

In  1 1 39,  Matilda  came  to  England  to  conduct  the  war 
on  her  own  behalf,  and  the  state  of  anarchy  and  violence 
was  then  increased.  One  of  the  last  entries  made  in  the 
precious  old  English  Chronicle,  by  some  pious  pen  at 
Peterborough,  describes  the  fearful  disorder  that  pre- 
vailed, when  "  every  powerful  man  made  his 
misery  of  castles,"  and  "filled  them  with  devils  and  evil 
men,"  who  took  people  and  "  put  them  in  prison 
for  their  gold  and  silver,  and  tortured  them  with  unutter- 
able torture,"  and  pillaged  and  burned  towns,  until  people 
said  "that  Christ  and  His  Saints  slept." 

Stephen  had  forfeited,  by  folly,  the  support  which 
Roger  of  Salisbury  and  most  of  the  heads  of  the  church 
had  given  him  at  first,  and  when,  in  1141,  he  was  de- 
feated and  captured  at  Lincoln,  his  cause  seemed  lost. 
But  Matilda,  in  her  turn,  threw  away  her  advantages,  by 
an  arrogance  that  was  insulting  to  the  people  who  offered 
her  their  help.  Neither  claimant  of  the  crown  was  capa- 
ble of  winning  a  strong  party,  and  the  hopeless  chaos 
was  prolonged  through  nineteen  years. 

Meantime,  Geoffrey  Plantagenet,  Matilda's  husband, 
had  mastered  Normandy  by  actual  conquest,  and,  in 
1 144,  he  received  the  investiture  of  the  duchy  in  his  own 


1148-1154]       FUSING    OF    THE    NEW    I^ATION.  lOI 

right  from  Louis  VII.  of  France.     He  ceded  it  to  his 
son  Henry,  in  1148,  when  the  latter  reached  the  age  of 
fifteen.     Three  years  after  doing  so  Geoffrey  died,  and 
the  young  Henry,  then  eighteen,  succeeded  him  in  Anjou 
and  Maine.     The  next  year,  by  marriage  with 
Eleanor,  Duchess  of  Aquitaine  (then  just  di-  Angevin 
vorced  by  King  Louis  VII.  of  France),  Henry 
acquired  control  of  that  great  ducal  fief,  and  was  lord  of 
a  continuous  dominion  in  France,  which  stretched  from 
the  English  Channel  to  the  Pyrenees. 

47.  Peace  restored  —  the  Condition  of  England. 
Henry,  instead  of  his  mother,  now  became  the  claimant 
of  Stephen's  crown,  and  as  such  entered  England  with  a 
considerable  force.  The  country  in  its  misery  looked  to 
him  with  hope,  for  he  had  shown  promise  of  ability  and 
strength  of  will  ;  Stephen  was  weary  and  discouraged ; 
and  thus  it  became  possible  for  the  leading  prelates  of 
the  church  to  bring  about  a  peace.  In  November,  1153, 
a  treaty  was  signed  which  ended  the  long  strife.  Under 
the  terms  of  that  treaty,  Stephen  wore  the  crown  until 
his  death,  which  occurred  in  the  following  year ;  when 
Henry  II.,  first  of  the  Angevins,  or  first  of  the  Plantage- 
nets,  as  he  is  variously  called,  was  elected  and  crowned 
at  Westminster,  and  began  an  important  reign. 

The  nineteen  years  of  civil  war  and  anarchy  that  fol- 
lowed the  death  of  Henry  I.  had  been  a  time  of  fearful 
suffering  for  England ;  but  it  had  not  many  lasting  con- 
sequences of  harm.     The  nation  even  made  some  gains 
through  it  all.     The  needful  fusion  of  English  Fusion  of 
and  Normans  had  gone  steadily  on,  as  the  two  andNor- 
were  continually  mingled    in   the   conflicts  of  °^*^^- 
the  time.     The  feeling  of  difference  between  them  on 
grounds  of  race  disappeared  so  rapidly  that  no  mention 
of  it  can  be  found,  it  is  said,  after  Stephen's  reign. 


I02  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.  [1154 

Good  came,  likewise,  from  the  weakening  that  feudal- 
ism sustained.  The  anarchy  of  the  period  has  been 
described  as  ''feudalism  run  mad,"  and  the  madness  was 
fatal  to  it.  Every  sane  feeling  in  the  nation  was  pre- 
pared to  support  a  strong  king  who  would  restore  the 
Reaction  needed  checks.  When  the  strong  king  came, 
ffudaf  ^^"^  Henry  II.,  he  found  it  easy  to  finish  the 
anarchy.  Couqucror's  jDlans,  by  thrusting  feudalism  out- 
side of  the  administrative  government,  reducing  it  to  a 
system  of  land-tenure  alone.  The  lawlessness  of  the 
period  had  bred  tyranny  in  plenty,  for  the  common 
people  to  suffer  from,  but  it  was  the  tyranny  of  petty 
tyrants,  and  was  readily  overthrown.  There  had  been 
no  opportunity  for  great  growths  of  power,  with  deep 
roots. 

Moreover,  the  frightful  conditions  described  by  the 
Peterborough  chronicle  were  certainly  not  universal. 
The  greater  towns  had  generally  been  able  to  protect 
themselves  ;  peaceful  pursuits  were  not  extinguished ; 
even  learning  was  kept  alive.  Lectures  on  law  were  first 
opened  in  Stephen's  time  at  Oxford,  where  lectures  on 
divinity  had  been  given  in  Henry's  reign  ;  and  thus  the 
great  university  of  the  future  had  its  birth  in  tempestu- 
ous and  disordered  times.  In  literature,  too, 
and  some  work  was    done.       It   was   in   Stephen's 

reign  that  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  excited  the 
imagination  of  the  time  by  those  Welsh  legends  of  King 
Arthur  which  he  set  forth  in  a  professed  History  of 
British  Kings,  and  which  a  Norman  writer,  Wace,  turned 
into  a  versified  romance  known  as  "The  Brut."  In  the 
same  distracted  reign,  the  performance  of  miracle  plays 
and  mysteries  was  begun  in  English  churches. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      1 03 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

34.  The  English  Adoption  of  their  Norman  Kings. 
Topics. 

1.  Satisfaction  of  the  English  at  the  accession  of  Rufus. 

2.  Dissatisfaction  of  the  Norman  barons  and  their  uprising. 

3.  Significance  of  the  people's  defence  of  their  new  king. 

4.  Their  gain  in  this  clash  between  nobles  and  king. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  114,  115. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  advantage  to  England  in 
separating  it  from  Normandy  ?  (2.)  In  what  way  was  Rufus's 
relation  to  England  more  satisfactory  to  the  people  than  that  of 
William  the  Conqueror  ?  (3.)  Why  did  Norman  barons  prefer 
a  weak  overlord  ? 

35.  The  Red  King's  Wickedness. 
Topics. 

1.  His  attitude  toward  laws  and  religion. 

2.  Appointment  of  Ranulf  Flambard. 

3.  His    interference   with    the   courts   and   ill-treatment   of  the 

church. 

4.  His  relations  with  Anselm. 

5.  How  the  king  spent  his  money. 

6.  Cause  of  his  subjects'  submission. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  11 5-1 18. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Describe  Flambard's  work  on  the 
feudal  system.  (Gardiner,  i.  116,  117.)  (2.)  How  did  Rufus 
get  riches  by  the  death  of  an  abbot  or  bishop  .'*  (3.)  What  tax 
on  inheritances  at  that  time  similar  to  ours  of  to-day  ?  (4.)  In 
what  states  do  we  have  an  inheritance  tax  ?     An  income  tax  ? 

36.  Reunion  with  Normandy. 
Topics. 

1.  Rufus's  measures  in  acquiring  Normandy. 

2.  Change  in  the  relation  of  the  duchy  and  the  kingdom. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  i.  59. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  had  it  become  necessary  to 
rescue  the  Holy  Sepulchre  ?  (2.)  Who  preached  the  first  cru- 
sade .''  (Guest,  153.)  (3.)  What  was  the  difference  between  her- 
mits and  monks  ?  (4.)  In  what  ways  were  people  induced  to  go 
on  crusades?    (Guest,  153.) 


I04  FUSING    OF    THE    NEW    NATION. 

37.  The  Red  King's  Wars. 
Topics. 

1.  With  France. 

2.  With  Scotland. 

a.  Malcohn's  forays  and  death. 

b.  Expulsion  of  the  English  party. 

c.  The  succession  estal)lished  by  Rufus's  aid. 

3.  With  Wales. 

4.  The  king  as  a  builder. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  i.  58,  59. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  use  is  made  of  Westminster 
Hall  at  the  present  day  ?    (2.)  What  is  its  present  name? 

38.  The  Red  King's  Death. 
Topics. 

I.  The  circumstances  of  his  death  and  England's  gain  thereby. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  122. 

39.    The  Beginning  of  the  Reign  of  Henry  I. 
Topics. 

1.  The  circumstances  of  Henry's  accession. 

2.  The  uprising  of  the  Norman  barons. 

3.  The  return  and  influence  of  Anselm. 

4.  IJattle  of  Tinchebrai. 

5.  Fusion  of  English  and  Norman  in  this  war  and  those  that 

followed. 
Reference. —  Gardiner,  i.  122-126. 

Research  Question.  —  Why  was  it  of  importance  for  Henry  to 
get  possession  of  the  royal  treasure  ? 

40.  The  Character  of  Henry  and  his  Reign. 
Topics. 

1.  The  establishment  of  his  rule. 

2.  His  marriage. 

3.  His  charter. 

a.  Its  significance  and  importance. 

b.  His  adherence  to  it. 

4.  His  personal  characteristics. 

5.  His  improvement  upon  the  financial  system  of  Rufus. 
References.  —  Green,  90,  91  ■     Charter  of  Henry  I. :  Bright,  i.  64 ; 

Colby,  46-4S ;    Ransome,  32;  Guest,   156:    Taswell-Langmead, 
77-79;  Stubbs,  S.  C,  99-102  ;  H.  Taylor,  i.  273. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.      105 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  are  hard  terms  evenly  and 
justly  enforced  more  endurable  than  easier  terms  unevenly  or 
unjustly  enforced  ?  (2.)  Why  does  a  prospect  of  change  in  the 
tariff  injure  business  more  than  either  a  high  or  low  one  once 
settled  ? 

41.  The  Exchequer.  —  The  Justiciar.  —  The  Chancel- 

lor. —  The  King's  Court. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Exchequer  and  its  duty. 

2.  Bishop  of  Salisbury  as  justiciar. 

3.  The  chancellor. 

4.  The  origin  and  outgrowths  of  the  King's  Court. 

5.  Henry's  revival  of  other  courts. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  126,  127;  Montague.  26,  27,31-33; 
Ransome,  35-39;  Bright,  i.  75,  y6',  Green,  H.  E.  P.,  i.  137,  138  ; 
Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  346-355,  375-392. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  are  the  duties  to-day  of  the 
Lord  Chancellor  and  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  ? 
(Montague,  27,  173.)  (2.)  Name  the  offices  in  our  own  govern- 
ment corresponding  to  them.  (3.)  In  what  respect  was  a  king's 
court  better  for  a  man  than  a  shire's  court.'* 

42.  Development  of  English  Towns  and  their  Trade. 

Topics. 

1.  Change  in  the  character  of  towns. 

2.  Effect  of  foreign  immigration. 

3.  The  local  trade :  a,  roads  ;  d,  markets  and  market-days. 

4.  The  foreign  trade  :  a,  fairs  ;  d,  exports. 

References.  —  English  towns  :  Colby,  70  ;  Green,  92-95  ;  Gar- 
diner, i.  72,  1 68-1 71  ;  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  ch.  iv.  ;  Mon- 
tague, 9,  35;  Green,  H.  E.  P.,  i.  196-214;  Gibbins,  22-31; 
Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  623-632.  Markets  and  fairs  :  Ashley,  i.  ch. 
i. ;  Rogers,  145-152;  Traill,  i.  208,  365,  462-464., 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  kind  of  land  is  suitable  for 
sheep-raising?  (2.)  How  does  wool  rank  in  importance  with 
other  manufacturing  fibres.  (3.)  Of  what  importance  was  it 
among  the  sources  of  English  wealth  ?  (4.)  To  whom  do  the 
British  owe  their  first  knowledge  of  woollen  manufactures.'' 
(5.)  With  what  country  on  the  continent  did  the  British  com- 


I06  FUSING    OF   THE    NEW    NATION. 

pete  in  the  wool  trade  ?  (6.)  How  would  this  clash  of  trade 
interests  influence  international  relations  ?  (7.)  In  what  country 
did  they  find  their  best  market  ?  (8.)  What  circumstances 
stimulated  woollen  manufacture  in  England  ?  (9.)  Name  some 
cities  in  the  British  isles  famous  for  their  woollen  manufactures. 
(10.)  What  ofiice  of  the  English  government  is  associated  with 
the  historic  wool-sack  ?  (11.)  Describe  the  chmate  of  England 
and  note  its  effect  upon  sheep-raising.  (12.)  What  act  of  de- 
vastation of  William  the  Conqueror  eventually  brought  about 
increase  in  sheep-raising?     (Article  "Wool,"  Ency.  Brit.) 

43.  Language.  —  Literature.  —  Religion.  —  Art. 

Topics. 

1.  Condition  of  England  under  Henry, 

2.  Direction  of  the  forward  movement. 

3.  Intellectual  matters. 

4.  Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle  and  other  historical  works. 

5.  Names  of  writers  of  such  works  and  language  used. 

6.  The  use  of  Latin  as  a  language.     Of  French.     Of  English. 

7.  Poetry  and  religious  awakening. 

8.  The  Cistercians  and  their  abbeys. 

9.  Destruction  of  town  monasteries. 

10.  Era  of  church-building. 

References.  —  Traill,  i.  254,  344-356;  Green,  95.  Saxon  and 
Norman:  Colby,  33-36;  Freeman,  S.  H.  N.  C,  ch.  ii ;  Traill,  i. 
343-354.  Anselm:  Green,  73,  74,  90,  91,  96;  Gardiner,  i.  117, 
118,  125,  126;  Bright,  i.  61,  62,  6^,  69,  71  ;  Ransome,  31,  33,  41  ; 
Guest,  152,  156. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  is  the  racial  difference  be- 
tween an  Anglo-Saxon  and  a  Norman.''  (2.)  What  elements 
made  up  the  Norman  language  ?  (3.)  If  the  two  races  did  not 
amalgamate  in  England  for  some  time,  what  was  the  condition 
of  the  language  ?  (4.)  Name  the  novel  of  Scott  which  shows  this 
alienation  between  Anglo-Saxon  and  Norman.  (5.)  Bring  into  a 
class  a  list  of  objects  having  both  a  Saxon  and  a  Norman  name. 
(Guest,  137.)  (6.)  What  modern  poet  wrote  of  King  Arthur? 
(7.)  Who  has  a  poem  on  Tintern  Abbey  ?  (8.)  Of  what  rank  as 
regards  other  church  dignitaries  was  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury ?  (9.)  Whom  did  he  especially  represent  in  England?  (10.) 
Was  he  necessarily  an  Englishman  ?    (11.)  In  what  way  might  his 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.      107 

foreign  birth  be  of  advantage  to  his  people?  (12.)  Do  churches 
hold  property  to-day  ?  (13.)  Why,  after  doing  homage  to  Rufus, 
did  Ansehn  refuse  to  do  homage  to  Henry  ?  (Johnson,  N.  E., 
206,  207.)  (14.)  Show  how  this  was  the  beginning  of  the  oppo- 
sition between  church  and  state  in  England. 

44.  Henry's  Mischievous  Plans  for  the  Succession 

to  Himself. 
Topics. 

1.  Henry's  family. 

2.  Death  of  his  son. 

3.  His  attempt  to  secure  the  succession  to  his  daughter. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  i.   129-131.     The  White   Ship:   Colby, 

49-52. 
Research    Questions.  —  (i.)   Bring  into    class   and   read    Mrs. 
Hemans's  poem  commemorating  the  death  of   Henry  I.'s  son. 
(2.)  What  was  the  objection  to  a  woman  as  ruler? 

45.  Stephen  of  Blois  on  the  Throne. 
Topics. 

1.  Death  of  Henry  and  of  Robert. 

2.  Lawful  descendants  of  the  Conqueror. 

3.  Matilda's  claim  from  the  English  point  of  view. 

4.  Choice  of  Stephen. 

References.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P..  ch.  ii. ;  Green,  98-101.  Stephen's 
charters:  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  16,  17;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  320-322; 
Taswell-Langmead,  83,  84;  Green,  H.  E.  P.,  i.  144. 

Research  Question.  —  Show  from  the  genealogical  table  on 
page  108  the  relationship  of  Stephen  and  Matilda,  and  their  re- 
spective hereditary  claims  to  the  throne. 

46.  Civil  War  and  Anarchy. 
Topics. 

1.  Characteristics  of  Stephen. 

2.  Encroachment  of  the  barons. 

3.  Matilda's  champion, 

4.  Battle  of  the  Standard. 

5.  Matilda's  arrival  and  the  defection  from  Stephen. 

6.  Failure  of  Matilda. 

7.  The  gathering  of  an  Angevin  dominion  under  Matilda's  son. 
References.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  ch.  ii. ;  Bright,  i.  80-86.     Anarchy 


io8 


FUSING    OF    THE    NEW    NATION. 


in  Stephen's  reign:  Colby,  52,  53;  Gardiner,  i.  134,  135;  Green, 
102,  103  ;  Bright,  i.  86-88. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  was  castle-building  on  the 
part  of  the  barons  contrary  to  English  policy?  (2.)  Why  was 
Stephen  more  Hkely  to  permit  it  than  his  predecessors?  (3.) 
What  was  the  effect  on  his  power  ? 

47.  Peace  restored.  —  The  Condition  of  England. 
Topics. 

1.  Henry's  appearance  in  England. 

2.  State  of  Stephen's  cause. 
The  treaty  of  peace. 
Condition  of  England  durins:  this  time. 


3- 
4- 
5. 


Weakening  of  feudalism. 


6.  Greater  towns  and  growth  of  Oxford. 

7.  Advance  in  literature. 

8.  Miracle  plays  and  mysteries. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  136,  137.  The  church  in  Stephen's 
reign:  Green,  103;  Traill,  i.  267-269. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Who  performed  these  miracle  plays 
and  mysteries  first  ?  (2.)  What  was  the  object  of  them  ?  (3.) 
Is  there  such  a  play  performed  at  present  ?  (4.)  Where  ?  (5.) 
Discuss  the  influence  which  the  Norman  family  as  a  whole  had 
on  the  development  of  England. 


LINEAGE    OF    THE   NORMAN    KINGS    FROM    THE   CON- 
QUEROR   TO    STEPHEN. 

Robert, 

Duke  of  Normandy^ 
died  1 135. 

William  1 1., 

called  Rufiis^ 

1087-1100. 


William  I., 

{The  Conqueror), 

1066-1087, 

married 

Matilda 

of  Flanders. 


Henry  I.,    f 

-    {Beaiiclerk),    j 

1100-1135,    J 

married       | 

Matilda       | 

of  Scotland.    (_ 

Adela, 

married 

Stephen, 

Count  of  Blots. 


Matilda, 

married  ^ 

Geoffrey, 

(Plantagenet), 

Co7int  of  A  njo7i. 


f  Stephen, 
(  1135-1154- 


i  First  married  to  the  Emperor  Henry  V.  ;  without  offspring. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

*  THE    UPBUILDING    OF    ENGLISH    LAW. 

Angevin,  or   Early   Plantagenet,  Kings  :  Henry  II.  — 

Richard  I.     1154-1199. 

48.  England  the  Chief  State  in  an  Angevin  Em- 
pire. Whatever  his  character  and  conduct  might  be,  a 
prince  who  already  ruled  nearly  half  of  France  could  not 
mount  the  throne  of  England  without  bringing  new 
influences  to  bear  on  that  country,  with  important  ef- 
fects. Until  the  Norman  Conquest,  the  relations  of  the 
Enghsh  people  with  the  continent  had  been  few  and 
slight.  They  had  been  almost  outside  of  the  move- 
m'ent  of  events  in  Europe,  and  of  the  movements  of 
thought  and  feeling  that  went  with  events.  By  their 
connection  with  Normandy  they  had  been  drawn  a  little 
way  into  the  current  of  activities,  but  hardly  more  than 
to  be  touched.  Even  the  great  agitation  of  the  Crusades 
had  been  felt  so  slightly  that  no  English  response  to  it 
appears  to  have  been  made.  But  now  the  small  Norman 
tie  between  England  and  continental  Europe  was  enlarged 
to  a  powerful  bond. 

A  King  of  England  who  was,  at  the  same  time,  Duke 
of  Normandy,  Duke  of  Aquitaine,  Count  of  Anjou, 
Count  of  Maine,  Count  of  Poitou,  and  Count  of  Tou- 
raine,  with  claims  to  the  overlordship  of  Brittany  and 
Toulouse,  to  say  nothing  of  the  overlordship  of  Scotland 
and  Wales,  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  European  sover- 


ilO  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.  [1154 

eigns,  —  near  to  rivalry  in  rank  with  the  German  Em- 
peror-King, and  exceeding  him  in  actual  power.  England 
was  raised  in  rank  among  the  nations  by  the 
the  King  of  rank  of  its  king.  A  livelier  national  spirit  was 
formed ;  interest  in  the  doing,  thinking,  and 
feeling  of  other  parts  of  the  world  was  widened  ;  inter- 
course with  other  countries  was  enlarged.  Against 
these  advantages  there  were  almost  no  disadvantages 
to  be  weighed  during  the  reign  of  Henry  II.  He  neither 
neglected  his  island  kingdom  nor  dragged  it  into  conti- 
nental strifes. 

49.  Restoration  of  Order  by  Henry  II.  Henry  had 
just  reached  manhood  when  he  took  the  sceptre  ;  but 
he  seemed  to  be  full-grown  in  all  his  powers.  He  pos- 
sessed a  sturdy  body,  an  intensely  active  mind,  and  a 
restless  temperament  that  never  knew  fatigue.  He 
acted  from  the  first  moment  with  sound  judgment,  and 
with  an  energy  hard  to  resist. 

Before  the  end  of  his  first  year,  says  Bishop  Stubbs, 
Henry  had  disarmed  the  feudal  party,  restored  the  regu- 
lar administration  of  the  country,  banished  the  mercena- 
ries, destroyed  the  castles  which  had  been  built  without 
royal  license  (called  "adulterine  castles"),  and  "showed 
the  intention  of  ruling  through  the  means,  if  not  under 
the  control,  of  his  national  council."  ^  Before  his  third 
year  was  far  spent,  he  had  compelled  even  the  King  of 
Scotland  to  surrender  the  earldoms  in  Cumberland  and 
Northumberland  which  Stephen  had  given  up.  Disorder 
in  England  was  disappearing  and  weakness  in  its  govern- 
ment was  at  an  end.  The  king  was  soon  able  to  quit 
the  island  for  long  periods,  while  he  attended  to  the 
affairs  of  his  dominions  in  France,  leaving  his  kingdom 
under  the  care  of  two  able  and  faithful  justiciars, 
^  Stubbs,  Cojist.  Hist,  of  Eng.,  ch.  xii.  sect.  137. 


» 


1159-1163]      UPBUILDING    OF    ENGLISH    LAW.  Ill 

From  1 1 59  until  the  beginning  of  1163,  England  saw 
nothing  of  its  king ;  but  its  government  was  quietly  car- 
ried on.  Some  part  of  that  long  period  was  employed 
in  an  attempt  to  make  good  the  claims  of  his  wife, 
Eleanor  of  Aquitaine,  to  the  county  of  Toulouse,  in  the 
south  of  France.  The  war  was  not  success-  -warm 
ful  ;  but  it  produced  important  consequences  ^^^nce. 
in  England.  Henry's  right  to  call  on  his  military  ten- 
ants or  vassals  in  England  and  Normandy  for  military 
service  in  Aquitaine  was  questionable,  at  least.  He  did 
not  attempt  to  claim  that  service  arbitrarily,  but  offered 
an  alternative  which  many  were  glad  to  accept.  Those 
who  preferred  to  remain  at  home  were  allowed  to  do  so 
on  payment  of  a  certain  tax,  proportioned  to  the  estate 
they  held.  With  the  money  thus  collected,  Henry  hired 
an  army  of  experienced  soldiers,  more  effective  for  war 
than  the  feudal  bands  that  he  would  otherwise  have 
led.  At  the  same  time,  he  introduced  a  practice  which 
became  common,  of  commuting  military  ser- 
vice for  what  was  called  sctitage  (shield-money, 
from  the  Latin  sciUuni,  a  shield),  and  that  practice,  in 
the  future,  acted  fatally  on  the  feudal  military  system, 
as  can  easily  be  understood. 

50.  The  King's  Conflict  with  Thomas  Becket.  In 
the  last  year  of  his  long  absence  from  England  the  king 
committed  an  error  which  sadly  troubled  the  remainder 
of  his  reign.  His  chancellor,  Thomas  Becket,  a  man 
of  brilliant  gifts  and  many  accomplishments,  had  won 
Henry's  heart  and  become  his  most  intimate  companion 
and  friend.  Like  most  educated  men  of  that  age,  Becket 
was  nominally  a  priest,  but  lived  the  life  of  a  courtier  and 
man  of  the  world,  and  had  even  led  a  large  following 
of  knights  in  the  king's  wars.  Nevertheless,  when  a 
vacancy   in   the  archbishopric   of    Canterbury   occurred, 


112 


THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.      [1163-1164 


Becket's 
conduct. 


Henry  determined  to  place  his  friend  in  that  high  seat 
He  had  plans  for  undoing  the  mistaken  work  of  Lan- 
f  ranc,  who  made  the  clergy  independent  of  ordinary  courts 
and  of  the  English  common  law,  and  he  expected  that 
Becket,  as  archbishop,  would  work  with  him  to  that  end. 
Becket  is  said  to  have  taken  the  sacred  office  unwill- 
ingly, and  to  have  warned  the  king  that  he  should  not 
act  in  it  according  to  the  wish  which  he  knew  to  be  in 
the  latter's  mind.  If  that  be  true,  Henry  is  mostly  to 
be  blamed  for  the  tragical  conflict  that  ensued. 
But  Becket  was  uncompromising  from  the  first, 
and  seemed  determined  to  set  himself  against  the  king, 
as  a  rival  power  in  the  state. 

The  noblest  work  of  Henry's  reign  was  in  the  reforms 

that  he  brought  into  the  ad- 
ministration of  the  law,  and 
nothing  stood  in  its  way  so 
much  as  the  exemption  of  the 
clergy  from  punishment  by  civil 
authority,  for  even  the  worst 
crimes.  This  drew  crowds  of 
bad  men  into  the  church,  for 
the  shelter  it  gave  them  in 
their  wicked  deeds,  and  nothing . 
could  be  more  reasonable  than 
Henry's  wish  to  bring  such 
^'criminous  clerks,"  as  they  were 
called,  within  reach  of  the  law. 
But  when  that  and  other  mat- 
ters of  reform  were  embodied  in  a  famous  enactment, 
called  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon,  submitted 

Constitu- 

tioxisof       to  a   Great   Council,   held   at  Clarendon,   near 
Salisbury,  in  1 164,  Becket  was  violent  in  opposi- 
tion, yielding  at  last  some  kind  of  assent,  which  he  after- 


BECKET  AND  HIS  SECRETARY, 
FROM  AN  OLD  MS. 


ii7o] 


UPBUILDING    OF    ENGLISH    LAW. 


113 


TRANSEPT   OF   CANTERBURY    CATHEDRAL,   THE   SCENE   OF   BECKET'S 

MURDER. 


wards  recalled,  claiming  to  have  been  tricked.  Accounts 
of  what  occurred  are  not  clear ;  but  this  was  the  outbreak 
of  a  quarrel  which  roused  hot  passions  on  both  sides. 

The  archbishop  was  driven  to  France,  and  when,  six 
years  afterwards,  he  was  persuaded  to  return,  it  was  not 
to  be  at  peace.  His  first  measures,  on  reentering  his 
see,  were  so  offensive  to  Henry,  then  in  Normandy,  that 
the  latter  cried  in  a  rage  :  "  What  a  parcel  of  fools  and 
dastards  have  I  nourished  in  my  house,  that  none  of 
them  can  be  found  to  avenge  me  of  this  one 

•  Themur- 

upstart  clerk.        The   hasty  exclamation   was  derof 

Becket. 

caught  up  by  four  of  his  knights,  who  left  the 

court   secretly  and  hurried  into  England,  to  carry  out 


114  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.  [1170 

what  they  believed  to  be  the  wishes  of  the  king.  They 
found  the  archbishop  in  his  cathedral  at  Canterbury,  on 
the  evening  of  the  29th  of  December,  and  killed  him  at 
the  foot  of  the  altar.  The  dreadful  crime  shocked  Eng- 
land and  all  Europe,  and  probably  no  one  was  so  api3alled 
by  it  as  King  Henry.  It  has  never  been  supposed  that 
he  intended  the  savage  deed  ;  his  guilt  was  in  the  pas- 
sion with  which  he  spoke,  and  the  penalties  that  he  paid 
for  it  were  heavy  during  all  the  remainder  of  his  life. 
Though  Becket  had  been  the  champion  of  no  religious 
cause,  he  was  thought  to  have  died  a  martyr's  death. 
He  was  canonized  by  the  pope,  and  pious  pilgrims  went 
in  throngs  to  his  shrine  at  Canterbury,  as  to  a  sacred 
place.  Henry  took  steps  at  once  to  acquit  himself 
before  the  pope,  and  then  went  hastily  into  Ireland,  to 
remain  until  he  could  be  absolved. 

51.  Beginning  of  the  English  Conquest  of  Ire- 
land. The  king,  on  going  to  Ireland,  took  into  his  own 
hands  an  undertaking  of  conquest  which  some  of  his 
subjects  had  already  begun.  The  Celtic  island  was  in 
a  deplorable  state.  The  vikings  who  assailed  it  in  the 
eighth  and  ninth  centuries  (see  sect.  17)  had  destroyed 
its  schools  of  Christian  learning  and  scattered  the  com- 
munities that  gave  it  Christian  light.  They  had  estab- 
lished settlements  on  its  eastern  coast,  which  were  called 
Danish  kingdoms,  but  which  were  scarcely  more 
kingdoms     than  colouics  for  piracy  and  trade.     Their  traf- 

in  Ireland.     ^  i  1       •  i       1,  n  i 

fic  was  largely  m  men,  women,  and  children, 
kidnapped  in  England  and  brought  from  Bristol,  to  be 
sold  into  slavery  to  the  Irish  or  to  traders  from  other 
lands.  The  Danish  colonists  were  perpetually  at  war 
with  their  Irish  neighbors,  and  the  Irish  were  as  per- 
petually at  war  among  themselves.  The  clans  or  tribes 
of  the  latter  were  loosely  grouped  into  four  kingdoms, — - 


1171-1172]      UPBUILDING    OF   ENGLISH    LAW.  II5 

Ulster,  Minister,  Leinster,  and  Connaught, — over  which 
the  O'Neils,  kings  of  Ulster,  and  the  O'Briens,  kings  of 
Munster,  were  rival  claimants  of  a  supremacy  which 
neither  could  make  good  for  any  long  time. 

Henry  had  formed  plans  for  the  conquest  of  Ireland 
as  early  as  1155,  and  the  pope  had  authorized  his  under- 
takins:  in  the  name  of  the  church  ;  but  circumstances 
had  caused  delay.  At  length,  certain  Norman-Welsh 
barons  obtained  permission  to  help  a  fugitive  king  of 
Leinster  recover  his  throne.  In  doing  so  they  acquired 
a  strong  footing  in  the  island,  and  their  leader,  one 
Richard  de  Clare,  known  as  Strongbow,  took  strong- 
the  title  of  Duke  of  Leinster  and  was  rising  to  conquest 
great  power.  This  independent  conquest  was  of  Iceland, 
not  to  Henry's  liking,  and  he  now  found  more  than  one 
reason  for  going  personally  into  Ireland,  to  gather  the 
fruits  of  it  into  his  own  hands.  The  task  was  not  diffi- 
cult. Every  part  of  the  island  except  Connaught  sub- 
mitted within  a  few  months,  and  the  Irish  church 
accepted  the  rule  and  discipline  of  Rome. 

Thenceforth  the  English  kings  were  "  Lords  of  Ire- 
land" by  title,  but  not  in  fact,  for  the  conquest  was  far 
from  complete.  The  English  were  masters,  as  the 
Danes  had  been,  of  a  few  towns  and  districts  on  the 
eastern  and  southeastern  coast,  and  were  con-  TheEng- 
stantly  at  war  with  their  Irish  neighbors;  i^shPaie. 
while  the  Irish,  as  before,  were  persistently  at  war 
among  themselves.  The  small  region  held  by  the  Eng- 
lish, called  at  a  later  time  "the  English  Pale,"  grew 
smaller,  instead  of  being  enlarged,  and  its  inhabitants, 
instead  of  showing  a  more  civilized  life  to  their  neigh- 
bors, soon  sank  to  the  same  plane. 

52.       The     Troubled    Ending     of     Henry's    Reign. 
What  Henry  had  done,  or  seemed  to  do,  in  Ireland,  was 


ii6 


THE   NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1172-118^ 


SO  pleasing  to  the  head  of  the  church  at  Rome  that 
papal  forgiveness  for  Becket's  death  was  won.  On  re- 
turning to  Normandy,  in  the  spring  of  1172,  he  met 
representatives  sent  by  the  pope  to  absolve  him,  on  his 
oath  that  he  had  not  planned  or  intended  the  crime  of 
his  knights.  He  was  required,  however,  to  annul  the 
Constitutions  of  Clarendon,  and  thus  far  was  driven  to 
a  retreat  from  his  reforms.  Later,  he  did  humble  pen- 
ance at  Becket's  tomb,  and  the  curtain 
was  dropped  on  that  tra- 
gedy of  his  reign. 

But  new  troubles  arose 
to  embitter  his  life.  Foes 
in  his  own  household  de- 
stroyed the  peace  of  his 
Queen         I'^st  ycars.      His 

Eleanor.         ^^^f^^    Elcauor    of 

Aquitaine,  a  woman  of  abil- 
ity, but  of  bad  passions 
and  no  principles,  gave 
teachings  of  discontent  to 
her  sons.  Henry  seems  to 
have  tried  hard  to  make 
arrangements  that  would 
satisfy  them,  but  did  not 
succeed.  He  had  caused 
his  eldest  son,  Henry,  to 
be  crowned  in  advance,  as 
his  successor,  with  no  bet- 
ter result  than  a  rebellion,  in  the  young  king's  name, 
assisted  from  both  Scotland  and  France.  Henry  mas- 
tered it  with  all  his  old  vigor,  and  was  able  for  some 
years  to  go  on  with  his  great  work  of  political  organiza- 
tion and  legal  reform.     He  had  given  his  second  son, 


HENRY    II.  ELEANOR. 

Effigies  in  the  abbey  church  of  Fontevrault. 


1183-1189]        UPBUILDING   OF   ENGLISH   LAW.  11/ 

Richard,  the  government  of  Aquitaine,  had  married  his 
third  son,  Geoffrey,  to  the  young  Duchess  of  Brittany, 
and  intended  Ireland  for  his  youngest  son,  John.  Rich- 
ard, by  harsh  oppression,  provoked  a  revolt  in  Aquitaine, 
and  his  brothers  Henry  and  Geoffrey  took  arms  The  sons  of 
with  the  insurgents  against  him.  The  unhappy  Henry  11. 
father  was  then  obliged  to  defend  one  of  his  sons  against 
the  other  two.  In  the  midst  of  this  painful  strife  the 
younger  Henry  died,  and  peace  was  made  with  diffi- 
culty between  the  remaining  brothers.  Two  years  later 
Geoffrey  died,  and  only  Richard  and  John  were  left  to 
give  trouble  to  the  unhappy  king,  which  they  were  willing 
enough  to  do.  John,  sent  to  govern  Ireland,  behaved  so 
insolently  there  that  his  father  called  him  back ;  while 
Richard  sulked  because  he  was  not  crowned  in  anticipa- 
tion, as  his  elder  brother  had  been. 

In  1 187,  all  Europe  was  excited  by  news  that  Jerusa- 
lem had  fallen  again  into  Mohammedan  hands.  A  new 
and  mighty  champion  of  the  Arabian  prophet,  called 
Saladin,  had  risen  in  the  east,  and  had  carried  all  before 
him.  This  time  England  felt  the  thrill,  and  both  Henry 
and  Richard  took  the  cross,  as  the  French  king  and 
other  princes  had  done ;  and  the  Great  Council  voted  an 
enormous  tax,  no  less  than  one  tenth  of  every  man's 
chattels  and  o:oods,  to  be  known  as  the  "Saladin 

^  The 

Tithe."     But  before  the  new  Crusade  could  be  saiadin 

Tithe 

set  on  foot,  a  fresh  revolt  against  Richard  broke 
out  in  Aquitaine,  leading  to  quarrels  between  Henry  and 
the  French  king,  in  which  Richard  joined  the  latter 
against  his  father.  This  was  a  deathblow  to  the  afflicted 
king.  He  submitted  to  every  demand  ;  then  took  to  his 
bed,  and  died,  at  Chinon,  on  the  6th  of  July,  11 89,  his 
last  moments  pained  by  the  discovery  that  even  John, 
his  best  loved  son,  had  been  in  the  rebellious  league. 


Il8  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.      [1154-1189 

53.  The  Legal  Reforms  of  Henry  II.  As  de- 
scribed by  Professor  Maitland,  the  historian  of  EngUsh 
law,  the  legal  reforms  of  Henry  II.  were  supremely 
important  in  their  lasting  effect.  Until  his  reign,  "  the 
great  bulk  of  all  the  justice  done  was  done  by  those 
shire-moots  and  hundred-moots  which  the  Conqueror  and 
Henry  I.  had  maintained  as  part  of  the  ancient  order, 
and  by  the  newer  seignorial  courts  which  were  springing 
up  in  every  village."  The  king's  own  court  was  in  the 
main  a  tribunal  for  causes  in  which  the  king  or  the 
barons  were  concerned.  Had  it  continued  to  be  no 
more  than  this,  the  Old  Eng-lish  law  —  the  law 

The  Old  ,  .  .  ^ 

English  that  prevailed  m  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Con- 
fessor,  called  '*  St.  Edward's  law  "  —  would 
probably  "have  split  into  a  myriad  local  customs,  and 
then  at  some  future  time  Englishmen  must  have  found 
relief  from  intolerable  confusion  in  the  eternal  law  of 
Rome,"  which  nourished  absolute  government  wherever 
it  was  introduced. 

But  that  did  not  happen,  because  under  Henry  II.  the 
king's  own  court  "  flung  open  its  doors  to  all  manner 
of  people,"  and  became  a  bench  of  professional  justices, 
sitting  periodically  in  every  county,  instead  of  an  occa- 
sional assembly  of  warlike  barons.  "Then,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Maitland,  "begins  the  process  which  makes  the 
The  com-  custom  of  the  king's  court  the  common  lazv 
moniaw.  ^f  England."  He  adds:  "Speaking  briefly, 
we  may  say  that  he  [Henry  II.]  concentrated  the  whole 
system  of  P^nglish  justice  round  a  court  of  judges  pro- 
fessionally expert  in  the  law.  He  could  thus  win  money 
—  in  the  Middle  Ages  no  one  did  justice  for  nothing  — 
and  he  could  thus  win  power  ;  he  could  control,  and  he 
could  starve,  the  courts  of  the  feudatories.  In  offer- 
ing the  nation  his  royal  justice,  he  offered  a  strong  and 


1154-11S9]     UPBUILDING    OF    ENGLISH    LAW.  II9 

sound  commodity."  "  King  Henry  and  his  able  minis- 
ters came  just  in  time  —  a  little  later  would  have  been 
too  late :  English  law  would  have  been  unified,  but  it 
would  have  been  Romanized."  ^ 

Among  the  legal  institutions  of  the  English  people, 
that  of  trial  by  jury  is,  perhaps,  the  most  cherished  of 
all.  It  grew  out  of  something  very  different  from  the 
jury  as  we  know  it  at  the  present  day.  So  much  is 
clear  ;  but  what  the  early  procedure  was  from  which  it 
rose  has  been  a  subject  of  much  study  and  dispute.  In 
the  opinion  that  now  prevails,  the  origin  of  trial  Trial  by 
by  jury  "  was  rather  French  than  English,  •'^^^• 
rather  royal  than  popular  ;  "  but  the  English  made  it 
what  it  is,  "  and  what  it  is,  is  very  different  from  what 
it  was."  It  is  supposed  to  have  come  from  a  proceeding 
begun  by  the  Frankish  kings,  who,  when  their  rights 
were  in  dispute,  caused  an  "inquest  "  to  be  held,  assem- 
bling the  best  and  oldest  men  of  the  neighborhood  and 
questioning  them  under  oath.  "  It  is  here,"  says  Pro- 
fessor Maitland,  ''that  we  see  the  germ  of  the  jury." 

The  Normans  brought  the  procedure  of  "inquest  "  to 
England,  and  their  first  important  use  of  it  was  in  the 
preparation  of  the  Domesday  Book,  "compiled  out  of  the 
verdicts  rendered  by  the  men  of  the  various  hundreds 
and  townships  of  England  in  answer  to  a  string  of  ques- 
tions." "Then  Henry  II.,  bent  upon  making  his  justice 
supreme  throughout  his  realm,  put  this  royal  remedy  at 
the  disposal  of  all  his  subjects.  This  he  did  not  do  by 
one  general  law,  but  piecemeal,  by  a  series  of  Assize  of 
ordinances  known  as  '  assizes,'  some  of  which  clarendon, 
[the  Assize  of  Clarendon,  the  Assize  of  Northampton, 
etc.]  may  yet  be  read,  while  others  have  perished." 

^  Pollock  and  Maitland,  Hhf.  of  English  Law,  book  i.  ch.  v.; 
also,  Maitland,  in  Social  England^  ch.  iii. 


I20  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION„      [1154-1189 

Trial  by  jury  began  from  Henry's  time  to  take  the 
Cessation  place  of  the  barbarous  "trials  by  combat,"  in 
^^mbat^"^  which  disputes  and  accusations  were  supposed 
and  ordeal,  ^q  ]^q  righteously  settled  by  fighting ;  and  of  the 
still  worse  "ordeals,"  which  subjected  accused  persons 
to  sufferings  and  perils,  by  fire  or  water,  from  which 
nothing  but  miracle,  or  the  "judgment  of  God,"  could 
save  them.  As  juries  were  representative  bodies,  the 
growing  use  of  them  made  the  idea  of  "  representation  " 
an  increasingly  familiar  one,  and  was  politically  important 
as  well  as  legally  so. 

By  his  Assize  of  Arms,  issued  in  1181,  Henry  struck 
an  almost  final  blow  at  the  feudal  military  system  and 
the  power  of  the  greater  barons.  It  revived,  or  strength- 
Assize  of  ened,  the  old  national  militia,  called  the  Fyrd, 
Arms.  Qf  ^\^Q  Anglo-Saxons,  requiring  every  freeman 
to  provide  himself  with  arms  and  to  be  in  readiness  for 
military  service  when  called. 

54.  Literature.  Naturally,  the  study  of  Law  was 
encouraged  in  this  reign  of  the  lawyer-king,  and  the 
literature  of  English  law  had  its  birth  in  a  "  Treatise  on 
the  Laws  and  Customs  of  England,"  ascribed  to  Ranulf 
Glanvil,  who  was  justiciar  in  the  later  part  of  Henry's 
reign.  "  Law  and  literature  grew  up  together ; "  for 
Roger  Hoveden  the  chronicler  and  Walter  Map  the 
poet  were  among  the  travelling  justices  employed  by 
Walter  ^^c  king.  In  the  writings  of  Walter  Map,  if 
the  Arthur  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^  ascribcd  to  him  was  his  own,  there 
legends.  ^g  ^  finer  quality  of  genius  than  England  (or 
Britain,  for  Walter  Map  was  probably  Welsh  in  blood) 
had  produced  before.  He  is  believed  to  have  been  the 
creator  of  those  romances  of  the  Holy  Grail,  of  Lancelot 
of  the  Lake,  and  of  the  Death  of  Arthur,  which  put  the 
soul  of  poetry  and  of  spirituality  into  the  crude  legends 


1154-1185]      UPBUILDING   OF   ENGLISH    LAW. 


121 


of  King  Arthur,  as  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  had  gathered 
them  up  m  his  pseudo  History  of  the  Britons.  In  that 
view  he  would  lead  the  line  of  the  great  British  poets, 
thouech  he  wrote  in  the  Latin  of  the  clerical  order  to 
which  he  belonged.  His  other  works  were  principally 
satirical  poems  against  the  monks. 

Of  literature  in  the  language  of  the  people  there  was 
nothing  yet  but  a  few  homilies,  or  simple  sermons,  and 
popular  songs  and  tales  which  passed  from  lip  to  ear. 
But  the  time  of  vigorous  ballad  literature  was  near  at 
hand,  and  its  favorite  subjects  were  being  furnished  by 
passing  events.  This 
reign  of  Henry  H.  and  the 
next  were  the  time  in 
which  the  delightful  out- 
law Robin  Hood  (delight- 
ful, that  is,  as  the  ^^^^^ 
popular  fancy  ^°°^- 
pictured  him),  is  supposed 
to  have  made  merry  with 
his  men  in  the  greenwood 
of  Sherwood  Forest,  then 
covering  a  large  part  of 
Nottinghamshire.  Not- 
withstanding the  hard  la- 
bors of   King  Henry,  his 

judges  and  his  ofificers,  much  disorder  and  oppression 
still  prevailed,  and  a  man  might  take  to  Robin  Hood's 
lawless  life  with  more  excuse  than  could  be  found  in 
later  days. 

55.  Richard  Cceur  de  Lion  and  his  Crusade. 
Richard,  the  rebellious  son,  succeeded  his  broken-hearted 
father  in  all  the  dominions  of  the  Angevin  house,  from 
Britain  to  the  Pyrenees.     Romance,  looking  at  nothing 


A    MEDIAEVAL    AUTHOR    AT    WORK, 
FROM    AN    OLD    MS. 


122 


THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION. 


[1189 


HOOD  OF  CHAIN  MAIL, 
TWELFTH   CENTURY. 


but  the  glitter  of  his  armor  and  the  flash  of  his  sword, 
has  chosen  to  make  him  the  most  heroic  and  splendid 

figure  among  English  kings.  It  is  an 
eminence  that  he  does  not  deserve. 
As  a  warrior  he  shone  ;  as  a  king  he 
was  bad ;  as  a  man  he  was  not  to  be 
admired.  He  was  bold,  energetic,  in- 
different to  human  suffering,  full  of  a 
restless  delight  in  rude  adventure. 
He  merited  the  name  that  was  given 
him,  of  the  Lion-hearted  (Coeur  de 
Lion),  and  he  gave  some  shining  ex- 
amples of  the  kind  of  showy  generosity  which  was  the 
one  admired  virtue  in  the  "chivalry  "of  his  day.  But 
his  selfishness  was  supreme,  his  rapacity  unmeasured, 
his  idea  of  government  nothing  but  the  power  to  do  with 
a  country  what  he  pleased  and  to  take  from  it  what  he 
desired. 

The  expected  adventures  of  the  Crusade  which  he  had 
promised  to  join  filled  all  Richard's  thoughts  when  he 
received  the  English  crown,  and  he  be- 
gan at  once  to  raise  money  for  it  by 
every  fair  and  foul  means.  Besides  the 
ordinary  measures  of  the  exchequer,  he 
resorted  to  a  shameless  sale  of  every- 
thing on  which  he  could  lay  his  hands. 
He  sold  the  offices  in  his  gift  —  even 
those  of  the  justiciar  and  the  chancellor. 
He  sold  to  the  King  of  Scotland  a  re- 
lease from  his  obligation  of  fealty  to  the 
English  crown.  He  sold  charters  and 
privileges  to  numerous  towns,  and  so  conferred  a  great 
benefit  on  England  without  intention  or  thought.  Then, 
having  sold  every  marketable  appurtenance  of  his  sov- 


CYLINDRICAL  HEL- 
MET, WITH  CLOSE 
VISOR,  TWELFTH 
CENTURY. 


1189-1192]        UPBUILDING    OF    ENGLISH    LAW. 


123 


"  '-^j 


ereignty,  he  did,  perhaps,  the  best  thing  he  could  do  for 
his  kingdom,  by  departing  for  the  Holy  Land,  with  a 
brilliant  following,  and  in  company  with 
Philip  Augustus,  the  King  of  P'rance. 

He  left  England  late  in  11 89;  but  it  was 
the  spring  of  1191  before  he  sailed  from 
Sicily  for  Palestine,  and  he  had  quarrelled 
with  Philip  already.  Of  his  exploits  in  the 
war  witji  Saladin  we  have  no  space  to  tell 
the  story.     It  must  suffice  to  say 

1  1  11  r      1         ^  "^^6  ^^^ 

that  he  was  the  hero  01  the  Cru-  with 
sade,  and  that  it  would  not  have 
failed,  as  it  did,  to  recover  Jerusalem,  if  he 
could  have  roused  emulation  among  his  col- 
leagues instead  of  offending  their  pride.  In 
1 192,  hearing  ill  news  from  home,  he  arranged 
a  truce  with  Saladin,  which  left  the  Chris- 
tians in  possession  of  Acre  and  other  places 
they  had  taken,  with  the  privilege  of  mak- 
ing pilgrimages  to  the  sacred  city  and  its 
shrines. 

He    then    set    sail    for    home,    but  was 
wrecked  in  the  Adriatic  and  forced  to  land.     He  dared 
not  travel  openly  through  the  country  of  the  Germans, 
nor  through  that  of  the  French,  having  quarrelled  fiercely 
with    both.      Attempting  to  make    his  way  in  disguise 
across    Austrian    territory,  he  was    recognized 
and  seized  by  the  archduke,  who  delivered  him  of  King 
to  the  Emperor,  Henry  VI.     That  prince  held 
him  imprisoned  for  more  than  a  year,  demanding  an  enor- 
mous ransom  for  his  release. 

56.  The  End  of  Richard's  Reign.  When  news 
came  of  Richard's  captivity,  his  brother  John  began  plot- 
ting to  prevent  his  release  and  to  obtain  his  crown ;  but 


RICHARD    I. 

Effigy  in  the  ab- 
bey church  at 
Fontevrault. 


124  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH    NATION.     [1194-1199 

England  seems  to  have  known  enough  of  John  to  prefer 
Richard  at  any  cost,  and  the  heavy  ransom  was  paid. 
John  conspired  with  PhiUp  Augustus  of  France,  and 
attempted  in  vain  the  beginning  of  a  civil  war.  Even 
before  the  king's  return,  in  March,  1194,  his  treacherous 
brother's  plots  had  come  to  naught. 

But  Richard  had  no  gratitude  to  show  for  the  sacrifice 
by  which  his  English  subjects  had  set  him  free.  He 
came  back  to  squeeze  their  purses  still  more,  remaining 
barely  two  months  in  the  kingdom,  again  holding  an 
open  market  for  the  sale  of  offices,  privileges,  crown 
lands,  and  church  lands,  while  he  planned  new  taxes  and 
gathered  in  fines„  Then  he  went  to  France,  where  he 
was  busy  in  wars  until  the  end  of  his  life,  and  England 
saw  him  no  more.  The  influences  working  in  France 
were  making  it  more  difficult  for  an  Angevin-English 
king  to  maintain  his  rule  over  Normandy  and  Anjou. 
Richard  did  succeed  in  reestablishing  his  au- 
wars  in  thority  ou  the  continent;  but  the  money-cost 
of  his  wars  was  heavy,  and  England  paid  the 
larger  part.  His  demands  were  incessant,  and  the  sums 
raised  for  him  enormous,  in  proportion  to  the  moderate 
wealth  of  that  age.  But  the  more  the  king  asked  from 
the  people  the  more  concessions  he  had  to  make  to 
them,  and  they  were  gaining  in  popular  rights  and  powers 
what  proved  to  be  worth  far  more  than  the  cost  in  gold. 
Richard's  ^'^'^  the  Spring  of  1 1 99,  King  Richard  received 
death.  ^  wound,  whilc  besieging  a  castle  in  Limoges, 
which  caused  his  death. 

The  justiciar  who  governed  England  from  1194 
until  1 198  was  Hubert  Walter,  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, —  a  statesman  who  did  well  for  the  people  in 
many  things,  while  he  was  faithful  at  the  same  time  to 
the  king.     He  developed  the  jury  system  which  Henry 


1I94-II99]       UPBUILDING   OF    ENGLISH   LAW.  125 

II.  had  made  important,  and,  says  Bishop  Stiibbs,  ''he 
tried    and    did   much    to    train   the   people  to  Hubert 
habits  of  self-government.      He    taught    them  ^odg^o^- 
how  to  assess  their  taxes  by  jury,  to  elect  the  emment. 
grand  jury  for  the  assizes  of  the  judges,  to  choose  repre- 
sentative knights  to  transact  legal  and  judicial  works  ; 
such  representative   knights    as    at   a  later  time  made 
convenient  precedents  for  parliamentary  representation. 
The  whole  working  of  elective  and  representative  insti- 
tutions gained  greatly  under  his  management — he  edu- 
cated the  people  against  the  better  time  to  come."  ^     So 
England  could  well  afford  to  pay  large  sums  to  King 
Richard  while  he  stayed  away  from  his  kingdom,  where 
he  spent  but  seven  months  of  his  ten  years'  reign„ 

57.  Rise  of  the  Towns.  The  towns,  as  we  have  seen, 
took  advantage  of  the  king's  demands  for  money  to  buy 
charters  and  grants  of  privilege.  They  were  steadily 
growing  in  strength  and  influence,  multiplying  their 
industries,  enlarging  their  trade,  and  obtaining  more 
independence  in  the  management  of  their  affairs.  One 
by  one  they  were  obtaining  the  right  to  pay  their  taxes 
in  a  fixed  yearly  sum,  assessed  and  collected  by  them- 
selves, and,  one  by  one,  they  were  getting  rid  of  the 
various  rights  of  lordship  that  had  been  exercised  over 
them,  and  acquiring  courts  and  officials  of  their  own. 

What  is  called  "municipal  incorporation,"  making  a 
town  or  city  one  distinct  political  body  in  its  local  gov- 
ernment, had  not  yet  been  brought  about.  The  various 
matters  of  local  government  were  more  or  less  divided 
up.  Gilds,  which  resembled  the  clubs  and  fra- 
ternal societies  of  modern  times,  played  a  part 
in  the  management  of  town  affairs  that  is  not  very 
clearly  understood.  The  oldest  of  great  importance 
1  Stubbs,  The  Early  Plantage>iets,  ch.  vi. 


126  THE    NORMAN-ENGLISH   NATION.     [1189-1199 

were  the  frith-gilds,  or  peace-clubs,  organized  for  the 
protection  of  their  members  and  for  the  pursuit  of 
criminals,  thus  supplying  a  kind  of  volunteer  police. 
Though  suppressed  by  jealous  feudalism  on  the  conti- 
nent, the  frith-gilds  had  been  encouraged  in  England 
from  an  early  time.  Craft-gilds,  formed  among  the 
workmen  of  different  trades,  were  also  of  ancient  origin. 
The  most  influential  of  the  gilds,  that  of  the  merchants, 
which  held  and  monopolized  the  privileges  of  trade,  of 
town  markets  and  fairs,  as  they  were  granted  from  time 
to  time  by  the  king,  is  not  known  to  have  existed  before 
the  Norman  Conquest  in  English  towns. 

One  of  the  signs  of  an  increasing  business  activity  in 
England  was  seen  in  the  importance  to  which  the  Jews 
had  risen  as  lenders  of  money.  A  mistaken  notion  in 
the  early  church  had  branded  the  taking  of  even  the 
smallest  interest  (usury)  for  money  loaned  as  a  sin,  and 
the  law  had  made  it  a  crime.  At  the  same  time.  Chris- 
tian hatred  of  the  Jews  drove  that  unfortunate 
people  from  nearly  all  reputable  employments, 
and  forced  them  to  adopt  in  general  the  occupations 
which  Christians  shunned.  This,  perhaps,  more  than 
any  other  cause,  made  the  Jews  in  the  Middle  Ages 
the  money-lenders — the  bankers — of  Europe.  They 
were  always  at  the  mercy  of  the  kings,  who  protected 
them  in  their  unlawful  business  when  it  suited  them  to 
do  so,  and  who  wrung  their  gains  from  them  with  little 
scruple  when  they  saw  fit. 

The  first  Jews  in  England  are  thought  to  have  come 

from   Normandy  with  the  Conqueror.     In  the  reign  of 

Henry  II.  their  settlements  had  grown  numer- 

tionofthe    ous  and  large.     In   1 190,  after  Richard's  coro- 

nation,  a  ferocious  outbreak  of  popular  hatred 

occurred  in  many  cities,  and  great  numbers  of  Jews  were 


1190-1199]      UPBUILDING    OF   ENGLISH    LAW.  127 

massacred  with  brutality.  At  York,  being  besieged  in 
the  castle  tower,  they  fired  it  and  destroyed  themselves, 
with  their  wives  and  children,  rather  than  fall  into  the 
hands  of  their  enemies. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

48.  England  the  Chief  State  in  the  Angevin  Kingdom. 

Topics. 

1.  Early  relations  of  England  to  the  Continent. 

2.  Possessions  of  Henry  II.  on  the  Continent. 

3.  England's  gain  through  the  dignity  of  its  king. 
Reference.  —  Green,  Henry  II.,  ch.  ii. 

49.  Restoration  of  Order  by  Henry  II. 

Topics. 

1.  Henry's  characteristics  and  his  early  reforms. 

2.  The  king  in  f^rance  in  the  interests  of  his  wife. 

3.  The  practice  of  scutage  and  its  results. 

References.  —  Green,  Henry  II.,  chs.  iii.,  iv.  Scutage:  Gardi- 
ner, i.  141,  142  ;  Bright,  i.  91,  93,  109,  113;  Green,  109;  Stubbs, 
E.  P.,  56,  s?'')  Montague,  41,  42;  Ransome,  53;  H.  Taylor,  i. 
283,  284. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  By  destroying  the  castles  Henry 
showed  himself  in  accord  with  whose  policy  ?  (2.)  As  duke  of 
French  fiefs  did  he  yield  to  the  French  kings  what  he  demanded 
of  his  barons?  (3.)  Why  was  ''scutage"  a  blow  to  feudalism? 
(4.)  What  nations  of  the  present  day  compel  all  their  young  men 
to  serve  in  the  army  ?  (5.)  In  what  war  did  mercenaries  serve  in 
our  country?  (6.)  Distinguish  between  militia  and  the  regular 
army.  (7.)  What  is  the  disadvantage  of  fighting  with  mercena- 
ries ? 

60.  The  King's  Conflict  with  Thomas  Becket. 

Topics. 

1.  Becket's  first  office  and  his  early  character. 

2.  Change  when  he  was  made  Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

3.  Exemption  of  the  clergy. 

4.  The  Constitutions  of  Clarendon  and  Becket's  opposition. 


128        THE    UPBUILDING   OF   ENGLISH    LAW. 

5.  His  flight,  return,  and  death. 

6.  Action  of  the  pope. 

References.  —  Constitutions  of  Clarendon:  Gardiner,  i.  143-145: 
Green,  107;  Montague,  44,  45  ;  Ransome,  48,  49 ;  Green,  Henry 
II.,  ch.  V.  ;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  464-466  :  Taswell-Langmead,  91-94; 
H.  Taylor,  i.  287,  288  ;   Stubbs,  E.  P.,  -jd,  77. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  Why  is  the  state  better  fitted  to 
deal  with  criminals  than  the  church  ?  (2.)  Why  was  it  to  the 
pope's  interest  to  declare  Becket  a  martyr?  (3,)  What  effect 
does  persecution  usually  have  upon  a  belief.''  (4.)  Why  were  the 
people  apt  to  side  with  the  clergy  } 

51.  Beginning  of  the  English  Conquest  of  Ireland. 

Topics. 

1.  Condition  of  Ireland  resulting  from  Danish  invasion. 

2.  The  four  Irish  kingdoms. 

3.  Henry's  conquest  of  Ireland  and  reasons  for  the  same. 

4.  The  "  English  Pale." 

References.  —  Green,  Henry  II.,  ch.  viii. ;  Colby,  53-56. 

52.  The  Troubled  Ending  of  Henry's  Reign. 
Topics. 

1.  Absolution  of  the  king  and  his  reparation. 

2.  Troubles  with  his  sons. 

3.  The  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  the  new  crusade. 

4.  The  revolt  in  Aquitaine  and  death  of  Henry. 
Reference.  —  Green,  Henry  II.,  ch.  xi. 

53.  The  Legal  Reforms  of  Henry  IL 
Topics. 

1.  Administration  of  justice  before  the  time  of  Henry  II. 

2.  Changes  in  the  king's  court  and  the  result. 

3.  The  trial  by  jury  :  a,  origin  and  first  important  use  in  Eng- 

land ;  b,  use  by  Henry  to  displace  trial  by  combat  and  ordeals  ; 
c,  its  political  importance. 

4.  Strengthening  of  the  Fyrd. 

References.  —  Legal  reforms  of  Henry  II.:  Gardiner,  i.  146- 
148;  Bright,  i.  106-108;  Green,  109-111;  Green,  Henry  II. , 
chs.  iv.,  v.,  and  vi.;  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  52-55;  Montague,  42-50; 
Ransome,  50-54;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  469-495,  608-611  ;  Taswell- 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND    QUESTIONS.      129 

Langmead,  87-90,  158-190;  Traill,  i.  280-298;  Pollock  and 
Maitland,  i.  book  i.  ch.  v. :  H.  Taylor,  i.  308-31 1. 
Research  (2uestions. —  (i.)  What  were  "compurgators,"  "trial 
by  combat,"  and  "  trial  by  ordeal  "  ?  (Gardiner,  i.  32.)  (2.)  Were 
any  of  these  methods  ever  employed  in  America  ?  (3.)  How 
were  recognitors  forerunners  of  the  jury?  (Gardiner,  i.  147.) 
(4.)  W^hat  is  the  present  meaning  of  the  term  "  inquest  "  ? 

54.  Literature. 
Topics. 

1.  The  study  of  the  law. 

2.  Walter  Map  and  his  work. 

3.  Condition  of  literature. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  167  ;  Traill,  i.  351-354-  King  Arthur  : 
Morley,  English  Writers,  iii.  ch.  vi. ;  Bulfinch,  Age  of  Chivalry; 
Church,  Heroes  of  Chivalry  ;  Lanier,  Boys'  King  Arthur. 

b5.  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  and  his  Crusade. 

Topics. 

1.  Richard's  character  in  romance  and  in  real  life. 

2.  His  measures  for  raising  money. 

3.  His  departure  for  the  Holy  Land. 

4.  His  attempted  return  and  imprisonment. 
References.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  110-124;  Colby,  68-70. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  novel  of  Scott  describes  the 

romantic  side  of  Richard's  character?  (2.)  What  one  tells  of 
his  crusade?  (3.)  Why  is  it  a  bad  thing  to  have  the  offices 
of  government  put  up  for  sale  ? 

56.  The  End  of  Richard's  Reign. 

Topics. 

1.  John's  plots. 

2.  Richard's  return  and  his  departure  for  France. 

3.  His  demands  for  money. 

4.  His  death. 

5.  The  work  of  Richard's  justiciar :  a,  on  the  jury  system ;  d,  in 

the  assessment  of  taxes;  c,  in  choosing  representatives  for 

legal  work. 
Reference. —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  124-136. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  is  a  grand  jury  chosen  and 
made  up  ?     (2.)  What  are  its  duties  ? 


128        THE    UPBUILDING   OF   ENGLISH    LAW. 

5.  His  flight,  return,  and  death. 

6.  Action  of  the  pope. 

References.  —  Constitutions  of  Clarendon:  Gardiner,  i.  143-145: 
Green,  107;  Montague,  44,  45  ;  Ransome,  48,  49 ;  Green,  Henry 
XL,  ch.  V.  ;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  464-466  :  Taswell-Langmead,  91-94; 
H.  Taylor,  i.  287,  288  ;   Stubbs,  E.  P.,  '](i,  yy. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  Why  is  the  state  better  fitted  to 
deal  with  criminals  than  the  church?  (2.)  Why  was  it  to  the 
pope's  interest  to  declare  Becket  a  martyr?  (3.)  What  effect 
does  persecution  usually  have  upon  a  belief?  (4.)  Why  were  the 
people  apt  to  side  with  the  clergy  ? 

61.  Beginning  of  the  English  Conquest  of  Ireland. 

Topics. 

1.  Condition  of  Ireland  resulting  from  Danish  invasion. 

2.  The  four  Irish  kingdoms. 

3.  Henry's  conquest  of  Ireland  and  reasons  for  the  same. 

4.  The  "  English  Pale." 

References.  —  Green,  Henry  II.,  ch.  viii. ;  Colby,  53-56. 

62.  The  Troubled  Ending  of  Henry's  Reign. 

Topics. 

1.  Absolution  of  the  king  and  his  reparation. 

2.  Troubles  with  his  sons. 

3.  The  fall  of  Jerusalem  and  the  new  crusade. 

4.  The  revolt  in  Aquitaine  and  death  of  Henry. 
Reference.  —  Green,  Henry  II.,  ch.  xi. 

63.  The  Legal  Reforms  of  Henry  II. 
Topics. 

1.  Administration  of  justice  before  the  time  of  Henry  II. 

2.  Changes  in  the  king's  court  and  the  result. 

3.  The  trial  by  jury  :  a,  origin  and  first  important  use  in  Eng- 

land ;  b,  use  by  Henry  to  displace  trial  by  combat  and  ordeals  ; 
c,  its  political  importance. 

4.  Strengthening  of  the  Fyrd. 

References.  —  Legal  reforms  of  Henry  II.  :  Gardiner,  i.  146- 
148;  Bright,  i.  106-108;  Green,  109-111;  Green,  Henry  II., 
chs.  iv.,  v.,  and  vi.;  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  52-55;  Montague,  42-50; 
Ransome,  50-54;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  i.  469-495,  608-611  ;  Taswell- 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND    QUESTIONS.      129 

Langmead,  87-90,  158-190;  Traill,  i.  280-298;  Pollock  and 
Maitland,  i.  book  i.  ch.  v. ;  II.  Taylor,  i.  308-31 1. 
Research  Questions. —  (i.)  What  were  "compurgators,"  "trial 
by  combat,"  and  "  trial  by  ordeal  "  ?  (Gardiner,  i.  32.)  (2.)  Were 
any  of  these  methods  ever  employed  in  America  ?  (3.)  How 
were  recognitors  forerunners  of  the  jury?  (Gardiner,  i.  147.) 
(4.)  What  is  the  present  meaning  of  the  term  "  inquest  "  ? 

54.  Literature. 
Topics. 

1 .  The  study  of  the  law. 

2.  Walter  Map  and  his  work. 

3.  Condition  of  literature. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  167  ;  Traill,  i.  351-354.  King  Arthur  : 
Morley,  Enghsh  Writers,  iii.  ch.  vi. ;  liulfinch.  Age  of  Chivalry; 
Church,  Heroes  of  Chivalry  ;   Lanier,  Boys'  King  Arthur. 

b5.  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  and  his  Crusade. 

Topics. 

1.  Richard's  character  in  romance  and  in  real  life. 

2.  His  measures  for  raising  money. 

3.  His  departure  for  the  Holy  Land. 

4.  His  attempted  return  and  imprisonment. 
References.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  110-124;  Colby,  68-70. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  novel  of  Scott  describes  the 

romantic  side  of  Richard's  character?  (2.)  What  one  tells  of 
his  crusade?  (3.)  Why  is  it  a  bad  thing  to  have  the  offices 
of  government  put  up  for  sale  ? 

56.  The  End  of  Richard's  Reign. 

Topics. 

1.  John's  plots. 

2.  Richard's  return  and  his  departure  for  France. 

3.  His  demands  for  money. 

4.  His  death. 

5.  The  work  of  Richard's  justiciar :  a,  on  the  jury  system ;  3,  in 

the  assessment  of  taxes;  c,  in  choosing  representatives  for 

legal  work. 
Reference. —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  124-136. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  is  a  grand  jury  chosen  and 
made  up  ?     (2.)  What  are  its  duties  ? 


I30        THE   UPBUILDING   OF   ENGLISH    LAW. 

67.  Rise  of  the  Towns. 
Topics. 

1.  Their  gains:  a,  in  charters   and  grants  of  privileges;  b^  in 

industries  and  trades ;  c^  in  freedom  from  rights  of  lordship. 

2.  Gilds. 

3.  Jews  and  money-lending. 

4.  The  massacre  of  York. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  168-170  ;  Colby,  70,  71 ;  Gibbins,  22- 

39- 


LINEAGE    OF    THE    ANGEVIN,    OR    EARLY    PLANTAGENET, 

KINGS    OF    ENGLAND. 

Henry, 
died  1 183. 


Matilda, 

daughter  of 

Henr\'  L, 

married 

(jeofTrey, 

(Plantagenet), 

Count  of  A  nj 071. 


Henry  II., 

1 1 54-1 1 S9, 
married 
Eleanor 


y  0/  Aquitaifte. 


Richard  I., 

{Cceur  de  Lio7i), 

1 189-1 199. 

Geoffrey, 
-{  married 

Duchess  of  Brittany . 
Died  1185. 

John, 

1199-1216. 

married 

Isabella 

of  A  ngouletne . 


Arthur, 

of  Brittany, 

murdered 

1203. 


I  Henry  III.. 
\    1216-1272. 


\ 


SURVEY   OF   GENERAL   HISTORY. 

THE    THIRTEENTH    CENTURY. 

Importance  of  the  Period.  The  period  covered,  in  English 
events,  by  the  following  chapter,  was  one  of  remarkable  im- 
portance in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Europe  seems  to  have 
been  nearer,  in  some  respects,  when  the  thirteenth  century 
closed,  to  the  great  change  from  its  mediaeval  to  its  modern 
state,  than  it  was  after  another  hundred  years  had  passed. 
Feudalism  was  giving  way  ;  nations  were  being  knitted  to- 
gether ;  a  middle  class  among  the  people  was  making  itself 
felt ;  inquisitive  thought  was  being  stirred ;  commercial  enter- 
prise was  growing  more  attractive  to  the  adventurous  and  the 
bold. 

Papal  Power.  This  was  the  age  in  which  the  popes  were 
most  powerful,  and  were  most  nearly  raised  to  supremacy,  as 
feudal  lords,  over  all  Christian  kings.  They  triumphed  in 
their  last  long  conflict  with  the  emperors,  and  the  "  Holy 
Roman  Empire,"  as  it  had  come  to  be  named,  was  nearly 
extinguished  for  a  time  by  the  consequences  of  the  strife. 
But,  before  the  century  ended,  the  decline  of  the  papacy  from 
that  great  height  of  power  was  begun. 

Italy.  In  Italy  the  growth  of  independent  cities,  as  busy 
centres  of  manufacturing  and  trade,  went  prosperously  on. 
Some,  like  Florence,  were  fully  democratic  republics  ;  in 
others,  like  A^enice,  a  small  oligarchy  ruled  ;  others  had  fallen 
under  military  masters,  and  what  is  known  as  the  "  age  of  the 
despots  "  in  Italy  was  coming  in.  Venice  and  Genoa  were 
fiercely  at  war,  as  competitors  in  the  Mediterranean  trade. 
Traffic  betv/een  the  Mediterranean  and  the  western  coasts 
of  Europe  was  still  carried  on   for  the   most  part  by  land. 


132  GENERAL    HISTORY. 

Apparently  few  voyages  by  the  ocean  circuit,  through  the 
straits  of  Gibraltar,  had  been  undertaken  when  the  thirteenth 
century  closed. 

Gej'inany  and  the  Hdnse  Towns.  For  Germany,  the  tale 
would  be  melancholy  were  it  not  for  the  free  cities,  which 
had  developed  a  vigorous  life  of  their  own.  Otherwise  the 
country,  where  one  of  the  strongest  of  nations  ought  then  to 
have  been  growing  up,  could  hardly  have  been  in  a  worse 
state  of  political  wreck.  Towards  the  end  of  the  century, 
however,  the  German  and  imperial  crowns  came  into  the 
possession  of  a  family  (that  of  the  Hapsburgs,  the  archducal 
House  of  Austria)  which  afterwards  raised  itself,  by  fortunate 
marriages,  to  great  rank  and  power,  and  gave  a  borrowed 
dignity  to  the  titles  it  bore. 

But  nothing  else  in  German  affairs  is  so  important  and 
interesting  as  the  remarkable  plan  of  commercial  confeder- 
ation which  the  free  cities  of  that  country  were  carrying  out, 
with  amazing  and  instructive  success.  Compelled  by  the  dis- 
orders of  the  time,  and  by  the  absence  of  any  international 
law,  the  cities  organized  leagues  amongst  themselves,  for 
common  defence  of  their  trade,  for  the  adoption  of  maritime 
codes,  and  for  securing  privileges  of  trade  in  different  lands. 
The  largest  and  most  powerful,  but  not  the  earliest,  of  these 
leagues  had  its  rise  in  the  north.  It  came  to  be  known  as 
the  League  of  the  Hanse  Towns,  or  the  Hanseatic  League, 
from  one  of  several  meanings  of  the  word  "  hanse,"  in  which 
it  signifies  association  or  gild.  At  its  greatest  extent,  the 
league  embraced  eighty  cities  or  more,  distributed  from  Flan- 
ders to  Russia,  and  it  consolidated  a  power  that  was  probably 
greater  than  that  of  any  single  nation  of  the  time.  In  Lon- 
don and  other  important  cities,  it  was  represented  by  great 
settlements  ("  Hanses  ")  strictly  governed  by  laws  of  its  own. 
It  gave  a  lesson  in  organization  which  was  probably  the  most 
civilizing  influence  of  the  age. 

The  Netherlands.  The  Netherland  country  was  becoming 
a  busy  industrial  hive.     At  the  south,  among  the  Flemings, 


THE    THIRTEENTH    CENTURY.  133 

there  was  skilful  weaving,  dyeing,  tanning,  and  working  in 
leather  and  metal ;  at  the  north,  the  Dutch  were  weavers,  too, 
and  they  were  makers  of  good  pottery ;  but  principally  they 
were  herring-fishers,  and  sailors,  and  builders  of  ships.  Eng- 
land furnished  the  main  supply  of  wool  and  other  raw  mate- 
rials which  the  skilful  Netherlanders  worked  up. 

Bruges  was  at  this  time  the  great  distributing  point  for 
commodities  exchanged  between  the  east  and  south,  on  one 
hand,  and  the  Baltic,  the  Netherlands,  and  England,  on  the 
other. 

France.  France,  unlike  Germany,  was  outgrowing  the  cha- 
otic feudal  state.  A  crafty  and  able  king,  Philip  Augustus, 
began,  in  the  first  years  of  the  century,  to  get  possession  of 
great  fiefs,  by  wresting  Normandy,  Maine,  and  Anjou  from 
the  English  king,  John,  as  will  presently  be  described.  An- 
other king,  St.  Louis  (Louis  IX.),  strengthened  the  French 
throne  by  the  justice  he  administered,  by  the  courts  he  estab- 
lished, and  the  peace  he  gave  the  kingdom. 

Spain.  The  struggle'  in  Spain,  between  Christians  and 
Moors,  passed  its  crisis  in  this  century.  The  Moors  were 
driven  into  the  extreme  south,  where  they  founded  their  last 
kingdom,  of  Granada,  to  hold  it  for  two  centuries  more.  The 
small  Christian  kingdoms  of  Castile,  Aragon,  Navarre,  and 
Portugal,  w^ere  kept  .generally,  but  not  always,  at  peace  with 
each  other  by  their  common  warfare  with  the  Moors.  In  both 
Castile  and  Aragon  there  were  popular  institutions  taking 
form,  which  seemed  to  be  nearly  as  promising  as  those  that 
the  English  people  were  building  up.  Many  towns  were  re- 
presented in  the  Cortes, — the  national  parliament  or  court, 
—  but  they  were  never  joined  there,  as  in  England,  with  a 
class  of  untitled  landowners  from  the  country  districts,  to 
form  a  strong  "  Commons,"  or  "  Third  Estate." 

The  End  of  the  Crusades.  Crusading  expeditions  for  the 
recovery  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  came  to  an  end  in  this  cen- 
tury. Jerusalem  was  finally  abandoned  to  the  enemies  of  the 
cross,  after  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.,  St.  Louis  of  France, 


134  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

and  Edward  I.  of  England,  had  each  vainly  tried  to  loosen 
the  iron  grasp  of  the  Turk. 

The  Eastern  Empire.  A  movement  of  pretended  crusad- 
ing, in  the  third  year  of  the  century,  was  diverted  to  the  con- 
quest of  Constantinople,  by  Venetian  intrigue.  The  Eastern 
Empire  (Greek  or  Byzantine,  as  we  choose  to  name  it)  was 
then  broken  up,  and  most  of  its  territory  was  divided  amongst 
the  conquerors.  In  one  Asiatic  fragment,  however,  a  family 
of  Greek  princes  set  up  their  throne  and  patiently  bided  their 
time,  until  they  were  strong  enough,  in  1261,  to  recapture  Con- 
stantinople and  resume  a  feeble  sovereignty,  which  claimed 
descent  from  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  east. 

Learning,  Literature,  and  Art.  Italy  was  now  preparing 
for  a  great  lead  in  the  wakening  of  Europe  to  new  desires  for 
knowledge,  new  inspirations  in  literature,  new  conceptions  of 
art.  Italian  schools  and  universities  were  being  multiplied, 
letters  eagerly  cultivated,  painting  and  sculpture  revived, 
while  Dante,  the  greatest  of  mediaeval  poets,  was  being  edu- 
cated in  the  stormy  life  of  democratic  Florence  for  his  im- 
mortal song.  Elsewhere  the  artistic  and  thoughtful  expres- 
sion of  the  time  was  in  its  wonderful  architectural  works.  It 
was,  for  architecture,  the  Augustan  age.  "  All  Europe,"  says 
Sir  Gilbert  Scott,  "became  filled  with  productions  of  the 
newly  generated  art ;  every  city  became  a  repertory  of  noble 
and  sublime  architecture,  and  every  town  and  village  became 
possessed  of  productions  equally  beautiful,  if  more  modest  in 
their  pretensions ;  while  the  intervening  country  was  studded 
over  with  castles  and  monastic  establishments,  in  which  the 
same  majestic  art  displayed  itself  in  ever  varying  forms." 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM. 
1199-1450. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

the  rise  of  the  english  commons. 

Angevin  and  Later  Plantagenet  Kings  :  John.  —  Henry 
III.  —  Edward  I.     1 199-1307. 

58.  King  John.  —  His  Loss  of  Normandy  and  the 
Angevin  Fiefs.  King  Richard  died  childless,  and  the 
rule  of  hereditary  descent  would  have  given  his  crown, 
not  to  his  surviving  brother,  John,  but  to  Arthur,  a 
young  son  left  by  his  older  brother,  Geoffrey,  Duke  of 
Brittany.  But  Arthur  was  a  boy  of  twelve  years,  and 
the  English  Great  Council  preferred  and  elected  John, 
though  regarding  him  with  dislike  and  distrust.  Nor- 
mandy did  the  same,  while  in  other  parts  of  the  Angevin 
dominions  Arthur  was  upheld  as  Richard's  heir, 

Murdsr  of 

and  supported  by  his  overlord,  the  P'rench  king.  Prince 
In  the  war  that  followed,  Arthur  was  taken  pris- 
oner by  John,  and  is  supposed  to  have  been  put  to  death 
(1203).     According  to  some  reports  at  the  time,  the  un- 
fortunate boy  was  murdered  by  his  uncle's  own  hands. 

Philip  of  P'rance,  as  overlord,  or  suzerain,  of  Brittany, 
Normandy,  and  the  Angevin  fiefs,  summoned  John  to 
make  answer  for  the  murder  before  the  court  of  the 
peers  of  P^ ranee,  and  judgment  was  pronounced  against 
him  when  he  refused  to  appear.     He  was  declared  to 


136 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1203-1205 


have  forfeited  his  fiefs,  and  before  the  end  of  the  year 
1204  Philip  had  taken  possession  of  all  but  Aquitaine,  a 
part  of  Poitou,  and  those  Norman  islands  on  the  French 
coast  called  the  Channel  Islands,  which  have  never 
Dissolution  ccascd  to  bc  undcr  English  rule.  The  great 
Angevin  Angcvin  dominion  was  dissolved,  and  England 
dominion,  ^yas  practically  once  more  a  kingdom  distinct 
and  apart.  Norman  families  that  had  held  estates  in 
each  country  were  now  forced  to  choose  between  Eng- 
land and  France.  Those  who  stayed 
in  the  island  became  wholly  English  ; 
those  who  quitted  it  had  no  longer  any 
voice  in  English  affairs.  The  new 
Norman-English  nation  had  now  been 
fully  formed. 

59.  King  John's  Quarrel  with  the 
Church.  Henry  IL  had  raised  the 
royal  authority  to  a  supremacy  in  the 
kingdom  which  was  dangerous  when  it 
came  to  be  vested  in  so  bad  a  man 
as  John.  The  power  of  the  barons 
had  been  waning,  while  that  of  the 
king  increased,  and,  though  the  "  com- 
mons"—  the  general  body  of  English 
freemen  —  had  gained  weight  and 
strength,  they  had  no  ability  yet  to 
act  for  themselves,  but  were  gener- 
ally led  by  the  clergy  in  such  political 
action  as  they  took.  If  John  had  not 
quarrelled  with  the  church,  he  might  have  played  the 
tyrant  with  success.  But,  fortunately,  he  was  so  foolish 
as  to  engage  himself  in  a  contest  that  arrayed  against 
him  the  whole  enormous  influence  of  the  chvnxh,  from 
that  of  the  pope  to  that  of  the  humblest  priest. 


JOHN. 

From  his  monument  in 
Worcester  Cathedral. 


I205-I2I3]  RISE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    COMMONS.  I37 

The  conflict  grew  out  of  the  election  of  a  successor  to 
Hubert  Walter,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who  died  in 
1205.  Appeals  to  the  pope  (Innocent  III.)  resulted  in 
the  primacy  being  given  to  a  very  noble  man,  Stephen 
Langton,  an  luiglish  cardinal,  of  famous  learn-  Stephen 
ing  and  exalted  purity  of  life.  A  better  choice  i^angton. 
was  rarely  made,  nor  one  happier  for  England ;  but  John 
seized  the  property  of  the  archbishopric,  and  refused  to 
permit  Langton  to  enter  his  see.  For  six  years  the  king 
defied  papal  authority  and  awed  his  own  rebellious  sub- 
jects, with  a  fierce  energy  and  an  obstinate  courage  that 
would  command  respect  if  they  had  been  shown  in  a 
worthy  cause.  Pope  Innocent  placed  the  kingdom  under 
interdict,  which  stopped  every  service  of  religion,  even 
for  the  burial  of  the  dead,  and  finally  he  decreed  the 
deposition  of  John,  commissioning  the  King  of  France  to 
expel  him  from  his  throne. 

Against  all  this  John  held  out  ;  but  his  courage  had 
no  moral  support,  and  is  supposed  to  have  been  broken 
down  at  last  by  a  vagrant  prophet,  who  predicted  that 
his  reign  would  end  on  the  next  Ascension  Day.  When 
he  did  make  submission  to  the  pope  it  was  abjectly  done. 
He  gave  up  everything,  even  his  kingdom,  receiving  it 
back  as  a  fief  of  the  Roman  See,  doins:  homasre 

Vassalage 

and  paying  tribute  as  a  vassal  to  the  pope.  He  to  the 
promised  everything,  including  a  promise  to  re- 
store to  the  church  what  he  had  seized  while  the  quarrel 
went  on  ;  and  proceedings  connected  with  that  restitution 
gave  rise  to  the  first  great  united  movement  of  the 
English  people  for  asserting  and  defining  their  rights,  in 
each  class,  under  the  crown. 

60.  Magna  Carta.  In  August,  1213,  the  justiciar  of 
the  kingdom,  Geoffrey  Fitz  Peter,  Earl  of  Essex,  sum- 
moned an  assembly  at  St.  Albans  to  settle  the  claims  of 


138  THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.        [1213-1214 

the  bishoprics  against  the  king.  It  was  called  a  council, 
but  its  purpose  gave  it  the  character  of  a  national  jury, 
and  that  is  probably  the  reason  why  the  representative 
principle,  long  used  in  forming  local  juries,  was  intro- 
duced in  making  it  up.  Not  only  bishops  and 
national       barons,  but  the  reeve  and  four  chosen  men  from 

represent-  ,  ,  .  .  .     ^  . 

ative  each  township  on  the  royal  domain,  were  sum- 

assem  y.     ^^^^g^j  ^q  attend.      For  the  first  time,  in  fact, 

so  far  as  can  be  known,  elected  representatives  of  the 
English  common  people  came  into  a  national  assembly, 
to  sit  in  council  with  prelates  and  lords. 

That  such  a  meeting  could  be  held  without  discussing 
the  grievances  of  commons  and  barons,  as  well  as  those 
of  the  heads  of  the  church,  can  hardly  have  been  sup- 
posed. The  justiciar  must  have  expected  it  to  go  beyond 
the  single  subject  it  was  called  to  consider;  for  he  is 
said  to  have  agreed  with  the  council  that  the 

Demand  ^ 

for  the  charter  and  laws  of  Heury  I.  —  much  tram- 
laws  of  pled  on  in  recent  reigns  —  should  be  revived 
and  put  in  force.  Henry's  charter  was  accord- 
ingly laid  before  John,  as  a  summary  of  demanded  re- 
forms ;  but  Fitz  Peter  died  suddenly,  and  the  king  did 
nothing,  except  to  show  his  contempt  for  English  feeling 
by  appointing  an  odious  Frenchman,  Peter  des  Roches, 
to  be  justiciar  in  Geoffrey's  place. 

At  this  time  John  was  in  league  with  several  princes 
on  the  continent  against  Philip  of  France,  and  early  in 
1 2 14  he  went  to  join  them  in  defending  the  Count  of 
Flanders,  whom  Philip  had  attacked.  On  the  12th  of 
Result  of  August,  in  that  year,  the  allies  fought  Philip's 
of  B^u"^^  army  at  Bou vines,  in  Flanders,  and  suffered  a 
vines.  disastrous  defeat.    The  battle  had  many  remark- 

able consequences,  and  not  the  least  among  them  was  the 
discomfiture  of   King  John.     He  lost   at   Bouvines   the 


I2I4-I2I5]     RISE    OF   THE    ENGLISH    COMMONS.  1 39 

power  to  keep  his  subjects  in  fear,  and  when  he  came 
back  to  England  he  found  them  banded,  not  in  secret 
conspiracies,  but  in  an  open  league,  to  extort  from  him 
the  demanded  charter  of  liberty  and  law. 

They  had  found  a  great  leader  in   Stephen   Langton, 
the  archbishop,  now  beginning  to  show  his  character  as 
a  true  Englishman,  a  fearless  patriot,  a  wise  statesman, 
partisan  of  no  order  or  class.      Behind  the  barons  were 
commons  and  clergy,  not  armed,  but  animated  with  one 
resolve.     The  nation  was  practically  in  revolt ;  the  king 
was  nearly  alone.     He  tried  every  device  of  low  cunning 
to  waste  time,  and  to  break  the  firm  array  that  The 
pressed   against   him ;    but    all  was  vain.      In  J"S™^^ 
April,  121 5,  the  northern  barons,  wearied  of  his  ^^^°^s. 
tricks,  assembled  their  forces  ;  in  May  they  had  formally 


PRESENT    VIEW    OF    RUNNYMEDE. 


renounced  their  allegiance  and  were  marching  to  the 
south.  London  opened  its  gates  to  them  with  joy ; 
most  of  the  very  court   and  household   of  the  king  at 


140 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM. 


[l21-. 


Oxford  deserted  him  as  the  army  approached.  A  small 
company  of  attendants  was  with  him  finally  when  he 
came  out  to  make  helpless  submission,  at  Runnymede, 
on  the  Thames,  between  Windsor  and  Staines,  on  the 
15th  of  June. 
The    Great    Charter    (Magna   Carta)   signed   on   that 


ijt^jrif^l^r^ 


.Tcl 


7< 


^^y$^fLp(^mi^.^^dp£^^^ 


tQVc 


QXMf 


^\vt^ 


ij&Lfc.  iwb^  ^ixwj  -juo^,  uTtt  MW(m  fcn*^. 1 

FACSIMILE  EXTRACT  FROM  MAGNA  CARTA. 

memorable  day  is  described  by  Bishop  Stubbs  as  being 
"a  treaty  of  peace  between  the  king  and  his  people." 
Twenty-five  barons  (the  Mayor  of  London  being  counted 
as  one  of  them)  were  nominated  to  compel  the  king  to 
fulfil  his  part.  It  was  not  a  selfish  attempt  on  the  part 
of  the  barons  and  bishops  to  secure  their  own  privileges ; 
"  it  provided  that  the  commons  of  the  realm  should  have 
the  benefit  of  every  advantage  which  the  two  elder  es- 
tates had  won  for  themselves,  and  it  bound  the  barons 
to  treat  their  own  dependent's  as  it  bound  the  king  to 
treat    the   barons.     Of   its   sixty-three   articles 

Provisions  •  1     i  •   •         r  1     r  i 

of  Magna     somc  providcd  securities  tor  personal  ireedom  ; 

Carta 

no  man  was  to  be  taken,  imprisoned,  or  dam- 
aged in  person  or  estate,  but  l:)y  the  judgment  of  his 
peers  and  by  the  law  of  the  land.     Others  fixed  the  rate 


I2I5]  RISE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    COMMONS  141 

of  payments  clue  by  the  vassal  to  his  lord.  Others  pre- 
sented rules  for  national  taxation  and  for  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  national  council,  without  the  consent  of  which 
the  king  could  not  tax.  Others  decreed  the  banishment 
of  the  alien  servants  of  John.  Although  it  is  not  the 
foundation  of  English  liberty,  it  is  the  first,  the  clearest, 
the  most  united,  and  historically  the  most  important  of 
all  the  great  enunciations  of  it."  ^ 

A  German  historian  of  the  English   constitution  has 
remarked    that   the   people  of   nearly   every   country   in 
Europe  have  had  at  some  time  a  Magna  Carta,  ^^  ^. 
or  similar  cataloirueof  mevances,  with  promises  tinctionof 

*  ^  '         ,      ^  .       the  English 

from  their  rulers  of  redress.     The  difference  in  Magna 

Carta. 

the  case  of  the  English  was  that  they  did 
not  forget  their  charter,  nor  suffer  it  to  be  forgotten,  but 
kept  it  in  force  by  repeated  confirmations  from  succes- 
sive kings.  "  Before  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages  this 
confirmation  had  been  thirty-eight  times  demanded  and 
granted."  ^ 

61.  The  Final  Struggle  with  King  John.  The 
signing  of  the  Great  Charter  was  not  the  end  of  the 
struggle  of  the  English  people  with  King  John.  He  was 
now  to  receive  his  reward  for  becoming  the  vassal  of  the 
pope.  His  cause  was  taken  up  at  Rome  ;  the  Charter 
was  annulled  by  papal  decree,  and  the  king  was  absolved 
from  the  obligations  to  which  he  had  sworn.  Backed  by 
this  great  authority,  John  turned  on  his  subjects  to  crush 
them  with  hired  soldiers  from  abroad.  At  first  he  had 
alarming  success,  and  the  party  of  the  barons  was  badly 
broken  and  dismayed.  Some  of  them  took  a  foolish  and 
wicked  course,  inviting  Louis,  the  son  of  King  Philip  of 
France,  to  come  and  accept  the  English  crown. 

1  Stubbs,  TJie  Ea7'ly  Plantagenets. 

2  Gneist,  Histojy  of  the  English  Constitution^  i.  311, 


142 


THE    DECLINE   OF    FEUDALISM. 


[1216 


Louis  entered  England  with  a  considerable  force  of 
Death  of  men,  and  all  was  favorable  for  a  time  to  his 
King  John.  j^Qpeg  g^^t  suddenly  John  fell  ill,  while  lead- 
ing his  army  from  Lincoln  toward  the  south,  and  died  at 
Newark,  in  October,  12 16.  His  death  ended  most  of  the 
feeling  that  had  encouraged  an  invading  French  prince, 
and  John's  son,  a  child  of  ten  years,  was  accepted  by  the 


la  cxce  W  Twnaf  t  X<\.  eft  cief  beti^tete 
lafiiuSa  C  Upe/ua  XVoxe  iawiu^jCe 

"■iryj-Ln  | 


I 


LONDON    EARLY    IN    THE    THIRTEENTH    CENTURY. 
From  a  drawing  by  Matthew  Paris. 


nation  in  general  as  its  rightful  king.  Some  of  the 
barons  stood  by  Louis,  who  held  his  ground  in  England 
for  nearly  a  year ;  but  in  the  end  he  made  terms  and 
received  a  payment  of  money  for  returning  to  France. 

62.  The  Beginnings  of  the  Reign  of  Henry  III. 
The  child-king,  Henry  III.,  was  solemnly  crowned  (Oc- 
tober, 1 2 16),  and  during  most  of  his  minority  the  country 


1216-1258]     RISE   OF   THE   ENGLISH    COMMONS.         143 


was  governed  well  ;  but  he  came  of  age  in  1227,  and  the 
action  of  his  ministers  was  then  no  longer  free.     They 
were  subject  to  the  commands  of  a  king  who  proved  to  be 
wilful,  weak,  vain,  and  false ;  who  was  controlled  by  for- 
eign favorites,  and,  like  his  father,  a  submissive  vassal  of 
the  pope.     His  extravagance  knew  no  bounds,  and  his 
exactions  of  money  could  not  be  controlled.     Again  and 
again  he  was  forced  to  make  promises  which  p^p^i 
he  would   not    keep.      Side   by  side  with  the  exactions, 
king's    extortions  were    others   from  Rome,      It  was  a 
saying  of  the  time  that  the  king  and  the  pope  were  the 
upper  and  nether  millstones  between   which  the   Eng- 
lish people  were  ground. 
In  jealous  vanity,  Henry 
undertook,  at  last,  to  be 
his  own  minister,  direct- 
ing  everything    in   the 
government  through  ir- 
responsible clerks. 

63.  Simon  de  Mont- 
fort  and  the  Provisions 
of  Oxford.  For  thirty 
years  England  seems  to 
have  waited  for  a  fit  lead- 
er of  the  people  against 
this  exasperating  king. 
Strangely  enough,  when 
the  leader  appeared,  he 
came  out  of  the  hated 

class  of  French-born  lords.  Simon  de  Montfort,  however, 
had  the  blood  of  an  English  grandmother  in  his  veins, 
and  was  Earl  of  Leicester  by  rights  derived  from  her. 
He  had  married  the  king's  sister,  made  England  his 
home,  and  was  faithful  to  it  through  all  his  life. 


HENRY    III. 
From  his  tomb  in  Westminster  Abbey. 


144  THE    DECLINE   OF   FEUDALISM.  [1258 

Affairs  in  the  kingdom  came  to  a  crisis  in  1258.  The 
reckless  extravagance  of  Henry  had  overwhelmed  him 
with  debts  ;  there  was  a  grievous  famine  in  the  country 
and  a  troublesome  war  with  the  Welsh  ;  yet  the  silly 
king  had  agreed  with  the  pope  to  undertake  a  conquest 
of  the  kingdom  of  Sicily  and  Naples  for  his  second  son, 
Edmund,  and  had  pledged  a  great  sum  of  money  to  de- 
fray the  cost.     He  called  a  Parliament,  to  lav 

The  Par- 

liament       bcforc  it  his  uccds,  and  to  make  the  usual  pro- 
of 1258.  .  ,.,,-.-  ,  ^   ^ 

mises,  which  he  did  not  mean  to  keep.     It  was 

still  the.  old  national  council,  of  barons  and  prelates,  not 
yet  broadened  out,  but  it  had  borrowed  a  new  name  of 
late,  and  was  beginning  to  be  called  a  "  Parliament,"  ^ 
after  the  manner  of  the  French.  It  came  toerether  in  a 
stern  and  angry  mood,  and,  led  by  Simon  de  Montfort, 
it  took  action  which  created  four  standing  councils,  to 
control  the  government  and  to  carry  out  certain  reforms. 
Practically,  a  new  constitution  of  government  was 
framed,  in  enactments  called  the  Provisions  of  Oxford ; 
but  the  scheme  was  not  one  that  could  satisfy  the  Eng- 
lish people.  It  had  simply  put  a  body  of  the  greater 
barons  into  power,  and  many  of  them  wished  to  carry 
reform  no  farther  than  their  own  interests  required.  A 
strong  party,  however,  stood  out  for  broad  pop- 

TheProvi-       ,  ■  \  ■,   r-      ,   L.  .  ^     ^ 

sions  of       ular  rights,  and  Earl  Simon  was  its  chief.     Ed- 

Oxford.  ,  1        1  •       » 

ward,  too,  the  king  s  elder  son,  —  destined  in 
his  future  career  to  take  rank  with  the  greatest  of  Eng- 
lish kings,  —  gave  that  party  his  support.  He  was  not 
yet  of  age,  but  he  saw  the  folly,  if  not  the  iniquity,  of 
his  father's  course,  and  could  recognize  the  growth  of  a 
power  in  the  state,  behind  that  of  kings  and  lords,  with 
which  lords  and  kings  must  learn  to  make  terms. 

1  Signifying  a  meeting  or  assembly  for  speech,  for  discussion, 
being  derived  from  the  French  word  par/e?',  to  speak. 


1259-1264]     RISE   OF   THE   ENGLISH    COMMONS.         145 


64.  The  Barons'  War.  The  Provisions  of  Oxford 
were  followed  by  another  series  of  ordinances,  called  the 
Provisions  of  Westminster,  which  seem  to  have  had  little 
result.  Everything  was  darkened  by  dissensions  and 
intrigues,  the  causes  of  which  are  obscure.  The  king 
made  the  most  of  the  confu- 
sion, dividing  his  opponents, 
and  obtaining  release  by  pa- 
pal authority  from  his  oaths. 
His  faithless  scheming  was 
disapproved  by  Edward  ;  but 
when,  in  1263,  hostilities  be- 
tween the  parties  broke  out, 
the  prince  took  his  father's 
side.  At  that  time  little  fight- 
ing occurred  except  on  the 
border  of  Wales. 

The  end  of  this  outbreak 
was  an  agreement  to  refer 
the  whole  dispute  between 
King  Henry  and  his  sub- 
jects to  Louis  IX., —  Saint 
Louis,  —  the  revered  King  of 

France ;  but  when  Louis,  who  was  used  to  absolute  gov- 
ernment and  unacquainted  with  the  state  of  things  in 
England,  decided  in  Henry's  favor,  Montfort  and  his 
party  refused  to  submit.  In  the  war  that  followed,  Ed- 
ward, not  his  father,  was  the  head  of  the  royalist  cause. 
The  first  campaign  was  brief.  It  began  in  March  and 
ended  on  the  14th  of  May,  1264,  at  Lewes,  Battle  of 
where  the  king's  army  was  beaten  so  decisively  ^^wes. 
that  the  king  and  his  chief  supporters  fell  into  Leices- 
ter's hands.  The  victors  then  dictated  their  own  terms, 
and  Edward  became  a  hostage,  held  in  pledge. 


LOUIS   IX.   OF   FRANCE. 

Painted  on  glass  in  the  Cathedral  of 
Chartres. 


146  THE   DECLINE   OF   FEUDALISM.       [1264-1265 

65.  The  Birth  of  a  Representative  Parliament.    A 

Parliament  was  called  together  to  devise  some  new 
scheme  of  government,  and  the  writs  for  it  summoned 
four  knights  to  be  chosen  from  each  shire  to  meet  with 
the  prelates  and  lords.  It  was  the  first  important  occa- 
sion in  English  history  on  which  even  the  gentry  of  the 
kingdom  had  sent  elected  representatives  to  a 
Parliament  orreat  council  for  dealinec  with  national  affairs 

of  1264.  °  ° 

at  large.  In  1254,  when  Henry  was  absent  in 
France,  there  had  been  a  council  called,  which  included 
two  knights  from  each  shire,  but  it  did  no  important 
work  ;  and  there  had  been  the  council  of  inquest  men- 
tioned above  (see  section  60) ;  but  those  were  only  steps 
leading  up  to  the  representation  of  the  commons  in  Par- 
liament, which  really  dates  from  this  assembly  of  1264. 
Even  yet,  it  was  landownership  alone  that  was  repre- 
sented ;   the  towns  had  no  voice. 

By  the  action  of  this  Parliament  of  1 264,  the  king  was 
placed  under  the  control  of  nine  councillors,  three  of 
whom,  with  Simon  de  Montfort  at  their  head,  had  the 
management  of  affairs.  For  a  year  England  was  gov- 
erned by  these  three.  It  was  in  that  year  that  Simon  de 
Montfort  took  the  great  step  which  made  him  the  actual 
creator  of  the  representative  Commons  of  England.  He 
Simon  de  causcd  the  king  to  issue  writs  for  a  Parliament, 
Mia^°'^*'^  that  met  on  the  20th  of  January,  1265,  to  which 
ment.  ^^q    representatives  from    each  city  and    bor- 

ough were  summoned,  as  well  as  two  knights  from  each 
shire.  Thus  was  rounded  out  the  representative  consti- 
tution of  the  English  Parliament ;  and  thus,  at  last,  the 
principle  of  representation  and  the  practice  of  election 
were  carried  to  their  final  use.  For  thirty  years  after 
the  Parliament  of  1265  there  was  no  other  so  complete ; 
but  a  model  of  representation  had  been  shaped. 


1265] 


RISE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    COMMONS. 


147 


The  famous  Parliament  of  Simon  de  Montfort,  as  it  is 
known,  sat  through  more  than  two  months,  but  did  no 
memorable  work.      Quarrels    in    the   government   were 
brewing  between  Earl  Simon  and  others.      There  was 
jealousy,  no  doubt,  of  his  power;  and  it  is  not  certain 
that  he  was  guilt- 
less of  working  to 
some     extent     for 
personal  ends.   His 
sons     made     ene- 
mies, and  were  evi- 
dently   bad     men. 
Thus         different 
causes    were    rais- 
ing up  a  formida- 
ble party  of   mal- 
contents, and   Ed- 
ward,        escaping 
from    his    custodi- 
ans,    became     its 
head.     Both    sides 
soon  had  armies  in 
the  field,  and  again 
the  issue  was  set- 
tled in  a  brief  cam- 
paign ;  but  this  time  it  was  Earl  Simon  and  his  cause 
that  went  down  in  defeat.     At  Evesham,  near  Battle  of 
Worcester,  on  the  4th  of  August,  1265,  the  earl  Evesham, 
was  forced   by  Edward   to  an   uneven   battle,  and  fell, 
fighting  hopelessly  but  desperately  to  the  last. 

Apparently,  when  Simon  de  Montfort  fell,  all  that  he 
and  his  supporters  had  done  went  for  naught.  But  Earl 
Simon  had  been  a  great  teacher,  and  his  lessons  were  left 
behind  him.     Into  one  mind,  at  least,  they  had  sunk  deep. 


EDWARD    I. 


148  THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1265-1272 

and  that  was  the  mmd  of  the  coming  king.  Mainly 
Death  of  because  of  Edward's  influence,  the  remaining 
Henry  III.  geven  years  of  his  father's  reign  were  years  of 
fairly  reasonable  government,  and  generally  of  peace ; 
though  Edward  was  long  absent,  leading  a  crusade  to 
the  Holy  Land  in  1268,  and  he  was  still  absent  in  1272, 
when  his  father  died.  In  his  absence  he  was  proclaimed 
king. 

66.  Edward  I.  Edward  I.  was  in  the  prime  of  man- 
hood when  his  reign  began.  In  most  cjualities  of  char- 
acter he  rose  to  the  higher  standards  of  the  age.  He 
realized,  in  fact,  much  more  than  had  been  promised  in 
his  early  youth  ;  for  dreadful  tales  of  brutal  temper  and 
wanton  cruelty  were  then  told  of  the  young  prince. 
Those  violent  impulses  remained  in  his  blood,  but  gener- 
ally he  had  subdued  them  to  the  control  of  a  clear  mind 
and  a  determined  will.  The  mind  of  Edward  had  much 
likeness  to  that  of  Henry  II.  As  Henry  was  the  pri- 
mary builder  of  the  administrative  machinery  of  English 
law,  Edward  was  the  first  great  legislator  or  formulator 
of  law. 

67.  The  Model  Parliament  of  Edward  I.  The  reign 
of  Edward  I.  is  most  distinguished  by  measures  which 
gave  the  English  Parliament  its  fixed  form,  casting  it  in 
the  mould  which  Simon  de  Montfort  had  roughly  shaped. 
Those  measures  came  late  in  the  reign,  but  it  is  proper 
to  notice  them  now.  For  more  than  twenty  years  after 
Edward  reached  the  throne  the  make-up  of  Parliament 
was  governed  by  no  settled  rule.  Sometimes  knights  of 
the  shire  were  called  ;  sometimes  they  were  not.  Some- 
times knights,  barons,  and  clergy  were  summoned  to 
separate  assemblies  at  different  times.  Only  twice  do 
town  representatives  appear  to  have  been  called.  This 
indefinite   constitution   of    Parliament    might   have  con- 


1295] 


RISE   OF   THE    ENGLISH   COMMONS. 


149 


tinned,  perhaps,  if  increasing  need  of  money  had  not 
forced  the  king  to  give  heed  to  the  growing  wealth  and 
weight  in  the  nation  of  the  traders  and  craftsmen  of  the 
towns. 

Edward  came  to  the  shrewd  conclusion  that  if  these 
thrifty  burghers  were  taken  into  counsel,  and  were  made 
responsible  parties  in  the  settlement  of  ques- 

,  .  Represent- 

tions  of  taxation,  they  would  open  their  purses  ation  of 

towns  in 

with  more  liberal  and  more  willing  hands.      Be-  Pariia- 
ing  then,  in   1295,  hard  pressed  for  money  on 
account  of  a  war  with  France,  and  in  trouble  with  his 
barons  and 

clergy  at  the 
same  time,  Ed- 
ward took  up 
Simon  de  Mont- 
fort's  idea,  and 
called  a  Parlia- 
ment in  which 


each  city  was 
represented  by 
two  citizens, 
each  borough 
by  two  burgh- 
ers, each  shire 
by  two  knights. 
As  this  was 
summoned  with 
more  regularity 

of  form  and  circumstance  than  Earl  Simon's,  and  was 
perfect  in  its  three  estates,  it  came  to  be  looked  upon 
as  the  ''Model  Parliament"  in  later  times. 

68.  The    English    "Commons"     and     ''Lords."     It 
must  not  be  understood  that  the  English  townspeople 


GREAT   SEAL    OF    EDWARD   I. 


I50  THE    DECLINE    OF   FEUDALISM.  [1295 

had  won  an  unexampled  gain  in  political  rights,  when 
their  representatives  took  seats  in  Parliament ;  for  the 
chief  towns  of  Aragon  and  Castile  had  enjoyed  the  same 
right  long  before.  The  true  advance  beyond  other  coun- 
tries which  England  had  made  was  in  the  parliamentary 
representation,  not  of  the  towns,  but  of  the  rural  dis- 
tricts, —  of  the  lesser  landowners  of  the  shires.  In  other 
countries,  the  townsfolk  were  the  only  people  who  made 
up  the  political  class  called  the  ''  Third  Estate  ;  " 

Town  and         ^  .       ,      .  .  ,  .  . 

country  and  their  separateness  m  the  possession  or 
"  Com-  political  rights  proved  to  be  mainly  the  reason 
"^°^^'  why  those  rights  were  generally  lost.     England 

was  the  one  nation  in  which  town  and  country  became 
united  in  the  Third  Estate,  or  "  the  Commons,"  as  the 
English  named  that  unclassed  mass  of  citizens  who 
appeared  by  representatives  in  Parliament,  and  who 
gradually  discovered  themselves  to  be  the  substantial 
body  of  the  nation. 

The  election  of  representatives  from  the  shires  had 
another  most  important  effect.  It  gave  an  official 
character  to  the  English  nobility,  a  character  widely 
different  from  that  of  the  nobility  in  any  other  country. 
After  the  Norman  Conquest,  all  tenants-in-chief  of  the 
Formation  king  wcrc  held  to  be  entitled  to  seats  in  the 
official  Great  Council,  but  the  greater  barons  only,  who 
nobility.  were  Specially  summoned  by  royal  letters,  per- 
sonally addressed,  were  expected  and  required  to  attend. 
To  the  remaining  crowd,  the  sheriff  in  each  county  gave 
a  general  notice,  by  the  king's  command.  Those  who 
received  the  personal  summons  came  thereby  to  be 
marked  off  by  a  very  distinct  line  from  those  who  did 
not.  They  were  marked  as  forming  a  body  of  "  hered- 
itary counsellors  of  the  crown,"  an  official  order  of  no- 
bles,  who  acquired  no  "nobility  of  blood,"   and  whose 


I295-I297]  RISE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    COMMONS.  151 

descendants  did  not  form  a  noble  caste.  For  the  parlia- 
mentary office  has  descended  from  generation  to 
generation  in  but  one  main  line  of  each  baro-  English 
nial  family,  conferring  the  nobility  of  the  "peer- 
age "  as  it  passed  ;  while  the  branching  families  of  younger 
sons  have  been  thrown  off  from  the  ennobled  stem,  to 
become  mixed  with  the  lesser  landlord  class,  —  with  the 
knights  and  the  "gentlemen"  of  English  society, — and 
to  be  counted  and  considered  with  them  as  part  of  the 
Commons  or  Third  Estate.  Instead  of  forming,  as  in 
many  other  countries,  a  mean  and  mischievous  swarm 
of  petty  nobles,  this  minor  aristocracy,  the  landlord 
"gentry,"  has  often  supplied  a  useful  leadership  to  the 
English  commons,  and  has  often  acted  a  directing  part 
in  the  struggles  through  which  the  people  have  come 
into  the  possession  of  their  rights. 

The  representative  form  given  by  Edward   I.  to  the 
Parliament    of    1295    established    a    precedent  t^q 
which  generally,  though  not  always,  prevailed  houses, 
in  after  years  ;  but  the  division  of  Parliament  into  two 
Houses,  of  the   Lords  (including   the  prelates)   and   the 
Commons,  sitting  separately,  came  at  a  later  time, 

69.  Edward's  Confirmation  of  the  Great  Charter. 
The  difficulties  which  caused  Edward  to  summon  the 
Model  Parliament  of  1295  led,  in  1297,  to  another  impor- 
tant result.  The  clergy,  in  obedience  to  a  papal  bull, 
were  refusing  to  make  him  any  grant  from  their  reve- 
nues, and  the  barons  were  refusing  to  follow  him,  with 
their  retainers,  to  France,  with  which  country  he  had 
engaged  in  war.  One  of  the  concessions  by  which  he 
ended  these  disputes  was  a  formal  confirmation  or  reis- 
sue of  the  Great  Charter,  and  likewise  of  a  Charter  of 
Forests,  w^hich  relaxed  the  oppressive  forest  laws  of  the 
Norman   kings.     This    Confirmatio    Cartamni,  as    it    is 


152  THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1282-1296 

known,  had  great  constitutional  importance,  because  it 
renewed  the  provision  forbidding  taxation  without  par- 
liamentary consent,  which  Henry  III.,  in  his  confirma- 
tions of  Magna  Carta,  had  left  out.  Thenceforward  that 
stood  as  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  English  consti- 
tution, often  violated,  but  never  given  up. 

70.  The  Subjugation  of  Wales.  Going  back,  now,  to 
review  the  more  stirring  but  less  important  events  of 
this  remarkable  reign,  we  find  Edward  engaged  early  in 
the  conquest  of  Wales.  Where  all  of  his  predecessors 
had  failed,  he  achieved  a  substantial  success.  After  his 
final  campaign  (i  282-1 284)  the  principality  was  annexed 
to  the  English  crown;  but,  in  1301,  it  was  conferred  on 
the  king's  eldest  son  and  heir,  who  thus  became  the  first 
in  a  long  line  of  English  Princes  of  Wales. 

71.  The  Scottish  War  of  Independence.  In  1290,  the 
line  of  direct  succession  to  the  Scottish  crown  came  to 
an  end,  and  several  claimants  appeared,  among  them 
John  Balliol  and  Robert  Bruce.  By  agreement  of  all 
parties.  King  Edward  of  England  was  called  in  to  settle 
the  dispute,  and  when,  in  1292,  his  decision  gave  the 
crown  to  Balliol,  he  received  the  homage  of  the  new 
king.  For  a  time  there  was  peace;  but  Edward  pre- 
sently put  forward  pretensions  as  overlord  that  were  new 
and  offensive  to  the  Scots,  and  King  John  Balliol  was 
forced  by  his  subjects  to  enter  into  a  secret  alliance 
with  the  French.  In  his  vigorous  and  merciless  way, 
Edward  made  short  work  of  the  consequent  war  (1296), 
taking  Berwick  by  storm  and  defeating  the  Scots  with 
terrific  slaughter  at  Dunbar.  The  kingdom  was  then  at 
his  feet,  and  he  dealt  with  it  as  a  forfeited  fief.  Balliol 
was  sent  to  imprisonment  in  the  Tower  of  London,  and 
an  English  council  governed  Scotland  so  oppressively 
that  it  rose  again  the  next  year,  in  revolt. 


1297-1307]    RISE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    COMMONS.  153 


It  was  at  this  time 
that  the  famous  Wil- 
Ham  Wallace  appeared, 
and  became  the  first 
hero  of  the  long  war 
of  Scottish  independ- 
ence, then  begun. 
Wallace  defeated  the 
English  at  Stirling 
Bridge,  and  put  an  end 
to  their  rule.  But 
Edward,  then  fighting 
the  French  in  Flan- 
ders, made  terms  with 
the  latter  and  came 
home,  to  lead  a  power- 
ful army  into  the  north. 
He  routed  Wallace  at 
Falkirk     (1298),     and 

seemed  to  be  master  of  the  country  once  more.  Wal- 
lace disappeared  and  was  scarcely  heard  of  for  several 
years.  Yet  Scotland  was  not  subdued.  Even  wmiam 
when  Wallace,  becoming  active  again,  had  been  ^^ii^ce, 
captured,  tried  in  London  for  treason,  and  shamefully 
executed  (1305),  English  authority  was  not  restored. 
The  Scots  found  a  new  heroic  leader  in  Robert  Bruce,  a 
grandson  and  namesake  of  the  Bruce  who  had  disputed 
Balliol's  claim  to  the  Scottish  crown.  They  made  him 
their  king,  crowning  him  at  Scone,  and  the  nation  was 
rallied  with  a  more  enduring  resolution  than  before. 

72.  Death  of  Edward  I.  Edward  died  in  1307,  while 
attempting,  in  a  feeble  state  of  body,  to  lead  an  army  in 
Scotland  against  Bruce. 

73.  Comnierce    and    IndustrieSo     A   league    headed 


WILLIAM    WALLACE. 


154 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.  [13TH  Cent. 


by  merchants  of  Cologne  had  the  monopoly  of  foreign 
trade  in  London  until  the  reign  of  Henry  III.  Then  the 
northern  league  (the  Hanse  Towns)  obtained  privileges 
TheHanse  there,  and  founded  a  "hanse"  or  gild,  which 
absorbed  that  of  Cologne  and  became  an  impos- 
ing establishment,  to  which  the  name  of  the 
"Steelyard"   was  given. ^     It  was   not    until  about  the 


Towns 
and  the 
Steelyard 


THE    STEELYARD    IN    THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURYo 


middle  of  the  thirteenth  century  that  the  growth  of  a 
body  of  English  merchants  engaged  in  exporting  Eng- 
lish products  to  foreign  markets  can  be  traced.  Their 
organization  was  known  as  "  the  Staple,"  though   "  the 

*  The  name  "  Steelyard,"  given  to  the  premises  occupied  by  the 
merchants  of  the  Hanse  in  London,  was  an  English  mistranslation 
of  the  Dutch  name,  Staelhof,  which  signified  the  hall  or  office 
where  cloth  was  marked  as  being  properly  dyed.  It  had  no  refer- 
ence to  steel  as  an  article  of  trade,  and  no  apparent  connection 
with  the  name  "  steelyard,"  given  to  an  old-fashioned  instrument 
for  weighing. 


I3THCENT.]    RISE  OF  THE  ENGLISH  COMMONS. 


155 


The  Staple. 


Customs. 


Staple,  in  its  primary  meaning,  was  an  appointed  place  to 
which  all  English  merchants  were  to  take  their 
wool  and  other  'staple'  commodities  for  sale." 
The  Staple  was  sometimes  at  Bruges,  sometimes  at  Ant- 
werp, sometimes  at  English  towns,  but  it  was  finally  es- 
tablished at  Calais. 

An  indefinite  right  which  the  kings  had  exercised,  to 
take  toll  from  goods  exported  and  imported,  was 
reduced  to  a  system  by  Edward   I.     The  fair 
toll,  of  ancient  custom,  as  distinguished  from  ''maltolt 
or  "maltote" 
(wrongful 
toll),  was  set- 
tled   by    law. 
This  gave  the 


name  of  cus- 
toms to  such 
duties  or  dues. 
A  customs  de- 
partment for 
their  system- 
atic collection 
was  created 
by  Edward  I. 
Only  the 
coarser  kinds 
of  cloth  were 
made  as  yet 
in  England  ; 
for  the  finer 
qualities     the 

English  depended  on  the  Netherlands,  to  which  they  sent 
most  of  their  wool.  Unsuccessful  attempts  were  made  to 
stop  the  exportation  of  wool  and  the  importation  of  cloth. 


MERTON  COLLEGE,  OXFORD- 


156  THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.     [13TH  Cent. 

r 

74.  Learning  and  Literature.  Though  there  were 
lecturers  and  teachers  at  Oxford  at  an  early  day,  the 
The  Grey  history  of  the  great  university  is  considered  to 
Friars.  begin  in  this  century,  when  the  number  of  stu- 
dents rose  to  many  thousands.  They  seem  to  have  been 
a  disorderly  mob,  living  rudely,  behaving  coarsely,  fight- 
ing perpetually  ;  yet  the  university  drew  to  it  such  teach- 
ers as  Friar  Roger  Bacon,  the  "  Father  of  Science,"  in 
the  modern  sense  of  the  term,  and  it  was  much  under 
the  influence  of  the  Franciscan  brotherhood  (the  Grey 
Friars)  to  which  he  belonged,  and  which  was  then  an 
admirable  body  of  pious  and  learned  men.  The  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge  was  rising  at  the  same  time,  but  less 
of  its  early  history  is  known. 

The  most  valuable  of  the  literary  work  of  this  period 
is  a  contemporary  history  of  part  of  the  reign  of  Henry 
IIL,  written  by  Matthew  of  Paris,  or  Matthew  Paris,  a 
monk.  It  marks  an  important  advance  beyond  the  older 
"chronicles,"  towards  the  writing  of  history  in  a  truer 
sense. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

58.  King  John.  —  His  Loss  of  Normandy  and  the  An- 
gevin Fiefs. 
Topics. 

1.  Reasons  for  the  election  of  John. 

2.  Death  of  Arthur  and  dissolution  of  the  Angevin  dominion. 
Referenxe.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  136-144. 

59.  King  John's  Quarrel  with  the  Church. 
Topics. 

T.  State  of  the  royal  power  at  John's  succession. 

2.  John's  contest  with  the  church  over  Stephen  Langton. 

3.  The  pope's  interdict  and  John's  submission. 
References.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  145-150.     Stephen  Langton  :  Gar- 
diner, i.  177,  180-182;  Green,  123,  126,  127, 130, 142,  143  ;  Bright, 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      1 5/ 

i.  131,  135-137,  143-147;  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  148,  153,156-159;  ^<^^- 
some,  59;  Montague,  53,  56;  Taswell-Langmead,  105,  106. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  From  whom  did  John  seem  to  in- 
herit his  quarrel  with  the  church  ?  (2.)  Trace  the  culmination 
of  the  pope's  authority  in  England  under  John.  (Guest,  193-199.) 
(3.)  Why  did  the  pope  by  an  interdict  punish  the  people  instead 
of  the  king.-* 

60.  Magna  Carta. 

Topics. 

1.  The  council  at  St.  Albans,  its  make-up  and  action. 

2.  John's  campaign  in  Flanders  and  its  effect  on  England. 

3.  Opposition  by  Stephen  Langton  and  the  barons. 

4.  Signing  of  the  Magna  Carta  and  its  provisions. 

5.  Magna  Cartas  of  other  peoples. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  182,  183;  Bright,  i.  137-139;  Green, 
128-130;  Colby,  74-78;  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  157;  Ransome,  60-63; 
Montague,  53-57  ;  Taswell-Langmead,  ch.  iv. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Discuss  this  new  combination  of 
barons  and  people  against  the  king.  (2.)  By  what  cause  was  it 
brought  about  ?  (3.)  What  is  the  significance  of  putting  into  the 
charter  provisions  for  its  execution .''  (4.)  What  is  the  British 
constitution?  (5.)  Compare  it  with  our  constitution.  (6.)  How 
may  changes  be  made  in  each,  and  which  do  you  consider  the 
more  flexible  ?  (7.)  What  European  country  has  a  constitution 
resembling  ours  in  form  ? 

61.  The  Final  Struggle  with  King  John. 

Topics. 

1.  The  pope's  championship  of  John. 

2.  John's  death  and  the  termination  of  the  trouble. 
Reference.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  158-161. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  does  John  compare  with  the 
preceding  kings  of  his  house  ?  (2.)  Describe  John's  treatment  of 
the  Jews.     (Guest,  195,  196.) 

62.  The  Beginnings  of  the  Reign  of  Henry  III. 

Topic. 

I.  Characteristics  Henry  showed  on  reaching  his  majority. 
Reference.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  161-188. 


158  RISE    OF    THE    ENGLISH    COMMONS. 

63.  Simon  de  Montfort  and  the  Provisions  of  Oxford. 

Topics. 

1.  New  leader  of  the  people. 

2.  Henry's  reason  for  summoning  Parliament. 

3.  Temper  of  this  Parhament  and  the  Provisions  of  Oxford. 

4.  Prince  Edward's  view. 

References. —  Gardiner,  i.  193,  199-204;  Bright,  i.  152-170; 
Green,  152-160;  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  ch.  ix.;  Colby,  78-83  ;  Ransome, 
64-67;  Montague,  62,  63  ;  Tout,  Edward  I.,ch.  ii. ;  Freeman,  G. 
E.  C,  69-90 ;  Traill,  ii.  393-395  ;  H.  Taylor,  i.  400-404;  Creighton, 
Simon  de  Montfort. 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  In  what  two  ways  may  the  increase 
of  the  power  of  the  church  in  this  reign  be  traced  ?  (2.)  Look 
up  Robert  Grosseteste,  and  show  how  his  calculations  measured 
the  exactions  of  the  church.  (Traill,  i.  404.)  (3.)  In  what  three 
ways  could  the  clergy  educate  the  people?     (Guest,  172,  173.) 

64.  The  Barons*  War. 
Topics. 

1.  Provisions  of  Westminster,  dissensions  and  intrigues. 

2.  St.  Louis  as  referee. 

3.  First  campaign  of  the  war. 
Reference.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  201-21 1. 

65.  The  Birth  of  a  Representative  Parliament. 

Topics. 

1.  Representation  of  the  new  Parliament. 

2.  Arrangements  for  carrying  on  the  government. 

3.  New  basis  for  representation. 

4.  Dissensions  and  the  second  campaign  of  the  war. 

5.  Results  of  Simon  de  Montforfs  teachings. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  196,  201,  218;  Bright,  i.  165,  185,  193- 

195;  Green,  158,  169-181  ;  Tout,  Edward  I.,  ch.  viii. ;  Stubbs, 
E.  P.,  207-234:  Colby,  89;  Ransome,  65,  70;  Montague,  62, 
68-70;  Taswell-Langmead,  ch.  vii. ;  Traill,  i.  396-403. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  is  the  significance  of  the  new 
tone  which  Parliament  takes  in  this  reign  by  asking  what  use  is 
to  be  made  of  the  money  raised  ?  (2.)  Why  is  it  a  good  thing 
for  the  people  to  have  the  king  in  want  of  money.'*  (3.)  Trace 
the  progress  of  royal  revenues  into  definite  forms  of  taxation. 
(Stubbs,  E,  p.,  226-234.) 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      1 59 

66.  Edward  I. 
Topic. 

I.  Characteristics  and  resemblance  to  Henry  II. 
References.  —  Green,  167,181-184;  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  262;  Bright, 

i.  173  ;  Tout,  Edward  I.,  ch.  iv. ;  Green,  H.  E.  P.,  290,  297-302. 

67.  The  Model  Parliament  of  Edward  I. 
Topics. 

1 .  Uncertainty  in  the  representation. 

2.  His  reason  for  giving  the  towns  representation. 

3.  The  make-up  of  the  model  Parliament. 
Reference.  —  Tout,  Edward  I.,  144-147. 

Research  Question.  —  Outline   parhamentary  development  up 
to  this  time.     (Ransome,  64-67.) 

68.  The  English  "  Commons"  and  "Lords." 

Topics. 

1.  English  third  estate  compared  with  that  in  other  countries. 

2.  Further  effect  of  shire  representation  ;  the  English  peerage. 

3.  The  new  Parliament  as  a  precedent. 
Reference.  —  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  ii.  ch.  xv. 

69.  Edward's  Confirmation  of  the  Great  Charter. 
Topics. 

1.  Reason  for  confirming. 

2.  Significance  of  the  confirmation. 
Reference.  —  Stubbs,  S.  C,  487-497. 

70.  The  Subjugation  of  Wales. 
Topic. 

I.   Its  annexation  and  bestowal  upon  the  king's  oldest  son. 
References.  —  Tout,  Edward  I.,  107-119  ;  Guest,  232. 

71.  The  Scottish  "War  of  Independence. 
Topics. 

1.  Disputed  succession  of  Scotland,  and  Edward  as  referee. 

2.  Edward's  claims  as  overlord  and  revolt  of  the  Scots. 

3.  William  Wallace. 

4.  Robert  Bruce. 

-References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  221-224,  226  ;  Bright,  i.  189-192,  203- 
208;  Colby,  90-92;  Green,  186-193,  211-214;  Stubbs,  E.  P., 
258-261,  274.  275. 


l6o  RISE    OF   THE   ENGLISH    COMMONS. 

72.  Death  of  Edward  I. 
Topic. 

I.  Circumstances  of  his  death. 

73.  Commerce  and  Industries. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Steelyard  and  the  Staple. 

2.  Custom  duties  and  cloth  manufacture. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  211  ;  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  230;  Cunningham 
and  McArthur,  71,  74-78,  203,  204;  Ashley,  i,  chs.  ii.,  iii. ;  Rogers, 
chs.  i.,  vi. ;  Traill,  ii.  100-114. 

74.  Learning  and  Literature. 
Topics. 

1.  Life  at  Oxford  and  Oxford  teachers  ;  Roger  Bacon. 

2.  Matthew  Paris  and  his  work. 

References.  —  Green,  137-141  ;  Colby,  83-87;  Traill,  ii.  72-74, 
81,  85,  360.  Origin  of  universities  and  the  academic  degree  of 
A.  B. :  Traill,  i.  337-339.     Rise  of  Oxford  :  Traill,  i.  339,  340. 


i 


J 


SURVEY   OF   GENERAL    HISTORY. 

THE    FOURTEENTH    CENTURY. 

An  Age  of  Adversities.  The  fourteenth  century  was  a  period 
of  many  adversities  in  Europe,  by  which  the  advance  of  civ- 
iHzation  appeared  ori  the  surface  to  be  checked,  though  the 
moral  and  intellectual  forces  that  carry  humanity  forward 
were  making  great  unseen  gains. 

Scandals  in  the  C/iu?rh.  The  Christian  church,  as  a  priestly 
organization,  was  sinking  to  a  deplorable  state,  even  while  the 
spirit  of  Christianity  was  revealing  itself  with  new  clearness 
to  the  broadening  intelligence  of  thoughtful  men.  Just  before 
the  century  began.  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  had  opened  a  con- 
flict with  King  Philip  IV.  of  France,  which -proved  disastrous 
to  the  head  of  the  church.  The  papal  capital  was  removed 
from  Rome  to  Avignon,  and  for  seventy  years  (known  as  the 
period  of  "  the  Babylonian  Captivity  ")  French  influence  con- 
trolled the  popes.  This  weakened  their  authority  in  other 
countries  and  lowered  the  respect  in  which  they  had  been 
held.  Then  the  return  of  the  papal  court  to  Rome  was  fol- 
lowed by  a  still  worse  period,  of  forty  years,  called  that  of 
"the  Great  Schism,"  during  which  rival  popes  reigned,  one  at 
Rome,  the  other  at  Avignon,  each  claiming  divine  authority, 
and  each  obeyed  by  a  part  of  the  Christian  world.  The 
character  of  the  clergy,  as  a  body,  was  much  injured  by  this 
scandalous  state  of  things  at  its  head  ;  but  the  very -scandals 
of  the  time  were  driving  many  minds  to  deeper  searching  for 
religious  truth. 

The  Black  Death.  Both  religious  and  irreligious  effects 
appear  to  have  been  caused  by  an  awful  visitation  of  plague, 
—  the  most  dreadful  of  which  history  gives  any  account. 
The  "  Black  Death,"  as  it  was  called,  coming  from  the  east. 


l62  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

swept  Europe  in  the  middle  of  the  century,  and  is  believed 
to  have  destroyed  not  less  than  25,000,000  of  its  inhabitants. 

The  Dreadful  State  of  France.  The  unhappiest  of  all  lands 
in  this  afflicted  age  was  France,  which  suffered  even  more 
from  war  than  from  the  deadliness  of  the  plague.  Some  ac- 
count of  that  wanton  war,  forced  on  the  country  by  an  Eng- 
lish king  who  claimed  the  French  crown,  appears  in  the  next 
chapter.  Its  ruinous  consequences  to  France  can  hardly  be 
described.  Authority  in  government  was  broken  down  ;  the 
people  were  reduced  to  despair  ;  lawless  bands  of  unpaid 
mercenaries  were  let  loose  to  spread  havoc  where  the  arm  of 
the  foreign  enemy  had  not  reached. 

A  parliament  like  that  of  England  might  have  done  great 
things  at  such  a  time  ;  but  the  "  States-General  "  of  France, 
which  resembled  the  English  Parliament  in  form,  did  so  in 
nothing  else.  It  was  called  together  in  1355  and  1356,  but 
worked  with  no  success.  It  had  met  but  once  before  in 
French  history,  and  had  neither  experience  nor  prestige. 
The  three  estates  could  not  act  with  agreement  together. 
First  the  nobles  and  then  the  clergy  withdrew,  leaving  the 
representatives  of  the  cities  alone.  The  latter  had  no  coun- 
try associates.  There  was  the  fatal  want  of  a  body  of  land- 
owning gentry  and  yeomanry,  to  form,  as  in  the  English 
"  Commons,"  a  part  of  the  "  Third  Estate,"  and  the  town  dep- 
uties had  not  strength  enough  alone  to  carry  the  nation  into 
great  reforms  which  they  planned. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  century,  the  sad  condition  of  France 
was  made  worse  by  the  accession  of  a  king  (Charles  VI.)  who 
was  a  child  when  crowned,  who  was  often  insane  in  after 
years,  and  whose  jealous  uncles  quarrelled  over  the  exercise 
of  authority  in  his  name.  Those  quarrels  bred  two  malignant 
factions,  Burgundian  and  Armagnac,  which  brought  France, 
in  the  next  century,  to  still  lower  depths  of  ruin  and  shame. 

The  Netherlands.  The  thrifty,  freedom-loving,  high-spirited 
people  of  Flanders  strove  long  and  hard  in  this  century  to 
cast  off  their  count,  who  reigned  over  them  as  a  vassal  of  the 


THE   FOURTEENTH    CENTURY.  163 

King  of  France  ;  but  they  failed  in  the  end,  and  their  yoke 
was  made  even  worse.  Before  the  century  closed  their  coun- 
try was  swallowed  up  (as  the  whole  of  the  Netherlands  was 
soon  to  be)  in  a  great  dominion  built  up  by  the  marriages  of 
the  French  Dukes  of  Burgundy,  and  destined  to  pass  with 
that  dominion  under  the  deadly  rule  of  Spanish  kings. 

Holland  was  already  beginning  to  create  schools  under 
professional  schoolmasters,  which  made  education  more  com- 
mon at  an  early  day  in  that  little  country  than  in  any  other 
in  the  world. 

Germany.  In  the  divided  and  distracted  state  of  Germany 
there  was  not  much  change.  For  several  generations  the 
Austrian  House  of  Hapsburg  lost  its  hold  upon  the  crown, 
which  was  worn  in  that  interval  by  kings  who  reigned  likewise 
in  Bohemia  and  Hungary,  and  who  gave  little  attention  to 
German  affairs.  Most  of  these  nominal  German  kings  went 
duly  to  Rome  and  were  made  nominal  emperors  by  the  pope. 

Despite  the  want  of  a  national  hfe,  there  was  a  growth  of 
German  spirit  and  a  stirring  of  mind.  In  literature,  the  period 
was  one  of  decline,  but  an  interest  in  learning  awoke,  and 
the  earliest  of  the  German  universities  were  founded  in  these 
years.  There  was  increasing  prosperity  in  the  industry  and 
trade  of  the  towns.  The  Hanse  League  was  at  the  height 
of  its  power.  It  controlled  substantially  the  commerce  of 
northern  Europe,  and  almost  dictated  to  kings  the  terms  on 
which  trade  should  be  carried  on. 

Italy.  In  Italy,  throughout  this  century,  the  political  dis- 
order could  hardly  have  been  worse.  The  mad  factions, 
Guelf  and  Ghibelline,  were  tearing  at  each  other  in  every 
town.  War  seemed  everywhere  incessant,  and  the  peninsula 
swarmed  with  bands  of  hireling  soldiers  —  "free  companies," 
they  were  called  —  by  whom  most  of  the  fighting  was  done. 
When  others  did  not  employ  them,  these  armies  of  wild  ad- 
venturers made  war  on  their  own  account.  Most  of  the  city 
republics  had  lost  their  freedom  and  were  submissive  to  some 
lord,  who   obtained   a  ducal   title  from  the   emperor  or  the 


l64  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

pope.  Florence  was  still  free  and  democratic,  but  its  demo- 
cracy was  becoming  that  of  a  turbulent  mob. 

And  yet  this  age  of  much  tumult  and  disorder  was  the  age 
of  Dante,  Petrarch,  and  Boccaccio,  and  of  many  artists  and 
scholars  who  gave  Italy  the  lead  of  all  Europe  in  the  finer 
culture  of  the  human  mind.  It  was  the  age  which  opened 
what  is  called  the  period  of  Italian  Renaissance,  signifying  a 
new  birth. 

OtJier  Countries.  In  other  parts  of  the  world,  the  four- 
teenth century  was  marked  by  many  important  events.  The 
Turks,  already  masters  of  Asia  Minor,  crossed  the  Hellespont 
and  entered  Europe,  beginning  conquests  which  covered  most 
of  the  region  south  of  the  lower  Danube  before  the  century 
closed,  and  which  opened  a  struggle  for  Hungary  that  went 
desperately  on  during  three  hundred  years.  Constantinople, 
with  little  territory  outside  of  its  walls,  still  held  out  against 
them,  valiantly  but  vainly  resisting  its  fate. 

In  what  is  now  Russia,  which  had  been  overwhelmed  by 
Mongols  or  Tartars  in  the  preceding  century,  a  duchy  was 
rising  at  Moscow,  that  would  in  time  break  the  Tartar  yoke 
and  begin  to  form  the  future  empire  of  the  Tsar.  Poland 
had  become  an  important  kingdom  and  entered  the  most 
brilliant  period  of  its  career. 

The  Swiss,  in  this  century,  made  good  their  independence 
against  the  Hapsburgs  of  Austria,  who  claimed  sovereignty 
over  them. 

Inventions  and  Discoveries.  Gunpowder,  or  some  explosive 
substance  of  like  nature,  appears  to  have  been  known  in 
China,  and  perhaps  in  India,  at  an  earlier  time  ;  but  the 
Arabs  or  Moors  are  believed  to  have  been  the  first  to  use  it 
in  war.  Borrowed  probably  from  them,  it  came  into  Europe 
some  time  during  the  early  part  of  this  fourteenth  century, 
so  far  as  can  be  ascertained.  Rudely  made  cannon  were  in- 
vented for  its  use,  long  before  lighter  firearms  were  thought 
possible,  and  its  early  employment  was  doubtless  in  sieges 
alone.  It  has  been  said  that  the  English  had  cannon  at  the 
battle  of  Crecy,  in  1346,  but  the  statement  is  open  to  doubt. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR. 

The  Last  Plantagenet  Kings:    Edward  II.  —  Edward 
III.  —  Richard  II.     1307-1399. 

75.  Edward  II.  and  his  Favorites.  Edward  IL, 
twenty-three  years  old  when  he  succeeded  his  father 
(1307),  had  already  shown  the  weakness  of  his  character. 
He  had  attached  himself  to  a  Gascon  knight,  Piers  Gav- 
eston,  whose  influence  was  seen  to  be  bad,  and  whom 
the  old  king,  for  that  reason,  had  banished  from  court. 
One  of  the  first  royal  acts  of  the  foolish  son  was  to  call 
Gaveston  back  to  his  side,  to  give  him  the  rich  earldom 
of  Cornwall,  and  to  exalt  him  in  favor,  while  the  chief 
ministers  of  the  late  king  were  dismissed.  The  young 
king  had  already  been  betrothed  to  the  Princess  Isabella 
of  P^ ranee,  and  when  he  hastened,  soon  after  his  father's 
burial,  to  claim  the  bride,  he  made  Gaveston  regent  dur- 
ing his  absence,  with  unusual  powers.  Thus  fatuously 
from  the  bee-inninsf  he  provoked  the  ill-will  of 

^  ^  ^  Gaveston. 

all  the  chief  men  of  the  kingdom.  Gaveston 
provoked  them  still  more  by  the  insolence  with  which 
he  bore  his  unearned  honors,  and  a  powerful  combination 
was  formed  to  put  him  down.  At  its  head  was  the 
king's  cousin.  Earl  Thomas  of  Lancaster,  whose  father 
was  the  younger  son  of  Henry  III. 

It  is  useless  to  detail  the  events  of  the  twenty  years 
of  confusion  and  disorder  during  which  this  incapable 
king  wore  the  crown,  but  cannot  be  said  to  have  reigned. 


l66  THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.        [1310-1323 

In  1 3 10,  Gaveston  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  barons  and 
put  to  death.     Lancaster  was  supreme  in  affairs 

Lancaster.     ^  t      ,     1         .  •  i  i 

for  some  years  ;  but  he,  too,  was  an  nicapable 
man,  and  his  power  waned.  Meantime,  the  country  suf- 
fered in  every  way,  from  dearth,  from  pestilence,  and 
from  disasters  in  the  Scottish  war,  which  still  went  on. 
Bruce,  in  13 14,  had  so  nearly  expelled  the  English  from 
his  kingdom  that  Stirling  was  the  only  important  strong- 
hold they  held,  and  that  was  being  besieged. 
Bannock-  King  Edward  led  such  force  as  he  could  raise 
to  its  relief,  and  suffered  a  frightful  defeat  at 
Bannockburn,  on  the  24th  of  June,  which  practically  re- 
stored their  independence  to  the  Scots. 

After  a  time  two  new  favorites,  the  Despensers, 
father  and  son,'  took  possession  of  the  weak-minded 
king,  and,  as  Lancaster  lost  authority,  they  rose  in 
TheDe-  powcr.  Then  a  new  combination  of  barons 
spensers.  clrovc  the  Dcspenscrs  into  exile  (1321)  ;  but 
there  was  such  a  lack  of  leadership  in  the  league  that 
Edward  was  able,  for  the  first  and  only  time,  to  make  a 
fiofht  on  his  own  account.  Lancaster  took  the  field 
against  him,  but  was  defeated,  taken  prisoner,  and  be- 
headed ;  whereupon  he  became,  in  the  popular  estima- 
tion, a  martyr,  and  miracles  were  supposed  to  be  wrought 
at  his  tomb.  The  Despensers  were  recalled,  and  both 
they  and  the  king  indulged  freely  in  revenge. 

76.  Deposition  and  Death  of  Edward  IL  Con- 
tempt for  the  king  was  universal,  and  he  was  surrounded 
by  treacheries,  even  in  his  own  house.  In  1323,  his 
queen,  Isabella,  went  to  France,  to  use  influence  with 
her  brother,  in  settling  disputes  that  had  risen  concern- 
ino;  homao:e  due  to  the  French  crown  for  fiefs  in  France 
Still  held  by  the  English  kings.  There  she  became 
infatuated  with  one  Roger  Mortimer,  lord  of  Wigmore, 


1323-1330]       VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR.  167 

and  joined  him  in  intrigues  for  removing  lulward  from 
the  throne.  Her  eldest  son,  another  luhvard,  who  fol- 
lowed her  to  France,  was  drawn  into  the  plot.  The  be- 
trayed husband  and  father  became  aware  of  the  treason, 
but  he  was  powerless  to  defend  himself  ;  for  the  loyalty 
of  the  English  to  their  king  was  practically  dead.  The 
queen,  raising  a  fleet  and  a  force  of  men  for  the  invasion 
of  England,  landed  in  Suffolk  in  September,  1326,  and 
the  helpless  king  fled  before  her  to  Wales.  He  was 
captured  in  November,  when  both  the  Despensers  were 
also  taken  and  put  to  death.  The  boy,  Edward,  then 
fourteen  years  old,  was  declared  guardian  of  the  king- 
dom, and  a  Parliament  of  the  three  estates  was  sum- 
moned in  his  name.  The  captive  king  resigned  his 
crown,  and  Parliament,  meeting  in  January,  1327,  gave 
it  to  his  son.  For  eight  months  the  deposed  sovereign 
was  allowed  to  live,  in  confinement,  first  at  Kenilworth 
and  later  in  Berkeley  Castle  ;  then  he  was  secretly  put  to 
death,  in  what  manner  and  by  whom  was  never  known. 

For  nearly  four  years  the  shameless  Queen  Isabella 
and  Mortimer,  her  lover,  controlled  the  government,  in 
the  name  of  the  boy-king.  At  the  end  of  that  time 
Edward  had  become  old  enough  to  see  in  what 

.  .     Execution 

manner  he  was  bemg  used.     He  caused  Morti-  of  Morti- 
mer to  be  arrested  and  brought  before  Parlia- 
ment  under  many   accusations,    including   that    of   the 
murder  of  the   late  king.     The  much  hated    man    was 
condemned  without  a  hearing  and  hanged. 

77.  Beginning  of  the  Personal  Reign  of  Edward  III. 
With  the  arrest  of  Mortimer  (October,  1330)  the  actual 
reign  of  Edward  HI.  may  be  said  to  have  begun.  He 
was  then  eighteen  years  of  age,  but  already  married  to 
Philippa  of  Hainault,  and  already  the  father  of  a  son. 
There  had  been,  since  he  was  crowned,  a  fresh  outbreak 


1 68 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.      [1328-1337 


EDWARD    III. 


of  war  with  Scotland  (1328),  and  it 
had  been  ended  by  a  treaty  of  peace, 
in  which  all  claims  of  the  English 
crown  over  Scotland  had  been  re- 
nounced in  his  name,  while  his  in- 
fant sister  had  been  given  in  mar- 
riage to  the  infant  Scottish  heir. 
But  when  Robert  Bruce  died,  in 
1329,  the  son,  David  II.,  who  suc- 
ceeded him,  was  only  seven  years 
old,  and  circumstances  encouraged 
a  son  of  the  dethroned  king,  John 
Balliol,  to  claim  the  crown.  As  he 
offered  to  put  the  Scottish  kingdom 
into  vassalage  again,  Edward  was 
persuaded  to  support  Balliol's  claim, 

From     a    wall-painting,    for-      aud    tO    Icud    hclp    by   whlch    hc    WaS 
merly     in     St.      Stephen's  ^         r^  ■    i        i 

Chapel,  Westminster.  scatcd  on  the  Scottish  throuc. 

Balliol,  when  in  power,  enraged 
his  subjects  by  surrendering  tp  the  English  the  whole 
of  Scotland  south  of  the  Forth,  besides  acknowledging 
the  remainder  to  be  an  English  fief.  A  few 
castles  still  held  out  for  the  young  king,  David 
Bruce,  who  had  been  sent  into  France,  and  the  resistance 
grew.  Repeated  risings  occurred  ;  the  odious  vassal-king 
needed  constantly  to  be  helped  by  his  overlord.  The 
Scots  renewed  their  alliance  with  France,  and  received 
I^^rench  aid  in  money  and  men.  And  so  the  fatal  breach 
of  peace  with  Scotland  led  on  to  a  war  with  France,  which 
lasted  a  hundred  years. 

78.  The  War  with  France.  If  Edward  had  gone  to 
war  with  France  for  no  cause  but  its  alliance  with  the 
Scots,  the  conflict  might  not  have  been  long  ;  but  he 
began  the  war  with  a  challenge  that  left  no  room  for 


War  with 
Scotland. 


1328-1337]       VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR. 


169 


peace,  by  laying  claim  to  the  French  crown.     The  late 
King  of  France,  Charles  IV.,  had  died  without  children, 
in   1328.      His   sister,   Isabella,  the  mother  of    Edward 
III.,  was  the  nearest  akin  to  him  of  any  living  person, 
and  the  crown  would  have  belonged  to  her,  or  to  one  of 
several  nieces,  if  women  could  inherit  it,  which  Edward's 
the  French  denied.     Falling  back  on  a  law  of  the'rrlnch 
one  branch  of  the  ancient  Franks, ^  called  the  crown. 
Salic  Law,  which  declared  that  "  Salic  land  shall  not  fall 
to  woman,"  they  gave  the  crown  to  a  cousin  of  the  de- 
ceased king,  Philip  VI.,  or  Philip  of  Valois.     Edward  dis- 
puted Philip's  right,  contending  that,  if  Isabella  could 
not  inherit,  he  could  do  so, 
as  her  lawful  heir.     Accord- 
ing   to    all    authorities    his 
claim  was  not  legally  good  ; 
but,  in  1337,  he  made  it  seri- 
ous by  assuming  the  title  of 
King  of  France  and  by  pre- 
paring to  attempt  a  conquest 
of  the  throne. 

Edward  found  allies  on 
the  borders  of  France,  in 
the  enterprising  cities  of 
Flanders,  which  were  in  re- 
volt, under  the  lead  of  a  crossbowman  with  ms  shield. 
Jacques  Van  Artevelde,  striv- 
ing to  free  their  country  from  its  vassalage  to  the  French 
crown. 


■'-  ,A 


1  Before  their  conquest  of  Gaul,  the  Franks  who  dwelt  on  the 
lower  Rhine  were  known  to  the  Romans  as  Salian  Franks  and 
those  on  the  micklle  Rhine  as  Ripuarian  Franks.  It  was  the  for- 
mer who  led  the  invasion  and  conquest,  and  the  law  referred  to 
above  was  derived  from  their  ancient  code. 


170 


THE    DECLINE    OF    P^EUDALISM.        [1338-1346 


In  the  first  nine  years  of  the  war  two  great  battles 
were  fought,  and  two  English  victories  won,  which  shone 
in  the  eyes  of  many  later  generations  as  the  most  glori- 
sea-fight  01-^s  cvcnts  in  English  history.  The  first  was 
offsiuys.     ^  i^gi^t  ^t  gg^^  Qf^  ^Yie  Flemish  port  of  Sluys 

(1340),  and  it  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  the  French 

fleet.  After  the  bat- 
tle at  Sluys,  there  were 
five  years  of  planless 
fighting  in  Brittany  and 
on  the  Aquitanian  bor- 
der, —  tiresome  sieges 
and  curious  exploits  of 
knightly  valor,  —  all  the 
story  of  which  is  told 
with  great  spirit  and  at 
much  length  by  Frois- 
sart,  the  old  chronicler 
of  the  court.  In  the 
sixth  year  (1346),  Ed- 
ward and  his  eldest  son 
(the  Black  Prince,  as  he 

AN    ARCHER  WITH    HIS   SHEAF  OF  ARROWS.       WaS      Callcd,      SUppOSCdly 

from    the   color  of   his 
armor)  ravaged  Normandy  and  then  moved  on  Calais. 

At  Crecy,  thirty  miles  from  Amiens,  the  English 
encountered  (August  26)  an  army  much  greater  than 
their  own,  led  by  the  French  king.  On  the  French  side 
was  a  formidable  number  of  mounted  knights  and  men- 
at-arms,  clad  in  mail  —  the  feudal  array  of  cavalry  —  and 
with  them  were  15,000  Genoese  archers  who  used  the 
Battle  of  clumsy  cross-bow.  Edward's  main  dependence 
Crecy.  -^-^  ^|^^  battle  was  on  the  stout  yeomen  of  a 
country  which  had  nearly  left  feudalism  behind  it,  among 


1346-1347]       VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR.  171 

the  things  of  the  past.  They  fought  on  foot,  with  the 
EngHsh  long-bow,  which  no  weak  arm  could  bend,  and 
which  drove  its  heavy  arrow  with  deadly  force.  A 
charge  of  the  French  horse  on  these  English  bowmen 
was  repulsed  with  great  confusion,  and  ended  in  so 
dreadful  a  rout  that  30,000  of  the  French  were  left  dead 
on  the  field.  The  battle  of  Crecy  is  most  memorable, 
historically,  as  a  great  and  impressive  blow  at  aristo- 
cratic feudalism,  by  a  nation  which  had  begun  to  arm 
itself  with  the  strength  of  its  common  people. 

From   the   Crecy  battlefield   Edward  marched   on   to 
Calais   and   laid   siege  to  the   city,  building  a  complete 
outer  town  around  its  walls.     Thus  quartered,  siege  of 
he  waited  for  nearly  a  year,  until  Calais  was  ^^^^^s. 
starved    into    surrender.     Thereafter,   for    two   hundred 
years,  Calais  was  an  English  port. 

While  Edward  was  engaged  in  the  war  with  France^ 
the  Scots  had  nearly  recovered  their  kingdom.  Balliol 
had  been  driven  out  and  young  David  Bruce  The  Scots 
had  been  brought  back  from  France.  But  there  ^^^• 
came  a  great  reverse  to  them.  Undertaking  an  invasion 
of  England  in  1346,  during  the  siege  of  Calais,  they 
were  met  and  defeated  at  Nevill's  Cross  ;  King:  David 
was  taken  prisoner  and  sent  to  the  Tower. 

79.  The  Black  Death  and  its  Effects.  In  October, 
1347,  the  king  returned  home,  having  arranged  a  truce 
which  circumstances  prolonged  for  eight  years.  The 
state  of  feeling  in  England  was  then  very  happy.  The 
court  gave  itself  up  to  joyous  pastimes,  and  the  people, 
proud  and  prosperous,  followed  the  example  of  the  court. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  King  Edward  created  the  splen- 
did Order  of  the  Garter,  in  iniitation  of  King  Arthur's 
Round  Table  and  its  twelve  knio:hts. 

From   that  height  of  joy  and  gayety  the  nation  was 


172  THE   DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1347-1369 

suddenly  struck  down  by  the  most  frightful  visitation  of 
plague  ever  known  in  the  world.  The  pestilence  called 
the  Black  Death,  which  entered  Europe  from  the  east 
near  the  end  of  the  year  1347,  reached  England  in  the 
following  August,  arrived  at  London  in  November,  and 
was  soon  spreading  death  in  every  part  of  the  island. 
The  disease  was  virulent  for  a  number  of  months,  and 
then  subsided,  but  only  to  reappear  in  1361,  and  again 
in  1369.  It  is  believed  to  have  swept  away  from  one 
third  to  one  half  of  the  entire  population  of  the  kingdom. 
The  social  effect  was  so  great  as  to  change  the  charac- 
ter of  English  classes  in  all  future  time.  Wages  were 
Social  doubled,  though   Parliament  endeavored  to  fix 

effects.  them  by  oppressive  laws,  which  landlords  strove 
eagerly  to  enforce.  There  is  some  reason  for  supposing 
that  many  landlords  resorted  to  harsher  measures  than 
these,  attempting  to  revive  old  demands  for  labor  from 
their  tenants  which  in  late  years  they  had  given  up. 
Eor  some  time  past  the  manorial  system  had 

Villeinage  .  . 

disappear-  been  Undergoing  a  great  change.  A  money 
rent  had  been  taking  the  place  of  the  personal 
labor  by  which  villein -tenants  paid  formerly  for  the  use 
of  their  bits  of  land,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  villein- 
class  is  supposed  to  have  become  practically  free  at  the 
time  of  the  plague.  It  seems  possible  that  the  lords, 
when  labor  became  scarce,  attempted  to  bring  back  the 
old  state  of  villeinage ;  but  how  far  that  was  undertaken 
is  in  doubt. 

80.  Edward  III.  and  the  Parliament.  In  its  first 
period,  the  king's  war  in  h" ranee  was  doubtless  favored 
by  popular  feeling.  Edward  was  extravagant  in  it,  as  in 
everything  else ;  his  demands  for  money  were  sorely 
felt  ;  but  he  gratified  the  national  love  of  glory,  and  was, 
on  the  whole,  upheld.      In  his  dealings  with  his  subjects. 


1338-1355]       VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR.  1 73 

however,  he  strained  their  good-will  to  the  utmost ;  and 
the  Commons,  if  they  did  not  quarrel  with  him,  learned 
boldness  in  their  attitude,  feeling  more  of  responsibility 
for  the  defence  of  English  liberty,  since  the  lords  on 
whom  they  formerly  leaned  were  now  drawn  to  the  side 
of  the  king  by  their  interest  in  the  great  war.  It  was 
in  this  period  that  the  Commons  appear  to  have  begun 
to  hold  their  meetings  apart,  and  that  "  the  definite  and 
final  arrangement  of  Parliament  in  two  houses "  was 
made. 

81.  Industrial  and  Comraercial  Progress.  The  one 
great  service  which  Edward  III.  rendered  to  England 
was  the  bringing  in  of  Flemish  weavers  and  Flemish 
dyers,  who  established  the  manufacture  of  finer  weavers, 
cloths  than  the  country  had  formerly  produced„  Hitherto 
the  English  fabrics  had  been  coarse  in  make  and  jooor  in 
color,  or  else  undyed,  and  found  no  market  abroad.  With 
the  immigration  of  Flemish  weavers,  who  escaped  in 
large  numbers  at  this  time  from  the  disorders  in  their 
own  land,  a  great  change  began,  and  l^^ngland,  ere  long, 
was  manufacturing  its  own  wool,  and  its  principal  export 
was  cloth. 

There  now  grew  up  a  new  class  of  English  merchants, 
who  organized  themselves  under  the  name  of  Merchant 
Adventurers,    and    entered    into    competition    with    the 
Hanse  traders  and  with  the  Merchants  of  the  Staple,  as 
the  traders  who  handled  the  old  staple  exports 
of  the  country  were  known.      It  was  the  begin-  Adventur! 
ning  of  the  great  commercial  career  of  the  Eng- 
lish nation.     But  of  English  shipping  afloat  there  was 
very  little  yet. 

82.  Renewed  War  with  France.  War  with  France 
was  reopened  in  1355,  when  the  Black  Prince  landed  an 
expedition  at  Bordeaux  and  began  a  campaign  of  plunder 


174 


THE    DECLINE    OF   FEUDALISM.       [1355-1360 


in  southern  France„  That  year  the  Enghsh  did  nothing 
but  march  through  peaceful  Languedoc,  gathering  up 
enormous  booty  and  leaving  ruin  and  misery  behind 
them.  In  the  next  year,  the  prince  led  an  expedition 
into  central  France,  spreading  ruin  as  before.  As  he 
returned  to  Bordeaux,  laden  with  plunder,  he  encoun- 
tered a  French  army,  under  King  John,  near  Poitiers. 
He  had  but  8,000  men,  it  is  said,  while  the  French  num- 
Battie  of  bered  50,000  ;  but  he  placed  his  formidable  bow- 
Poitiers.  nien  to  such  advantage,  and  the  French  king 
managed  his  heavier  forces  so  badly,  that  a  victory  as 


^d/ferraii^^ 


FRANCE  AT  THE  TIME  OF  THE  TREATY  OF  BRETIGNY. 


overwhelming  as  Crecy  was  won  at  Poitiers.     King  John 
was  among  the  prisoners  taken,  and  he  remained  in  cap- 
tivity for  some  years,  royal   authority  in  France  being 
represented  by  his  son  Charles,  then  a  lad  of  nineteen. 
In  1360,  even  the  hard  heart  of  Edward  was  touched 


1357-1370]       VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR.  1/5 

by  the  terrible  misery  that  he  saw  in  I^^rance,  and  he  con- 
sented to  peace  on  terms  set  forth  in  the  Treaty  Treaty  of 
of  Bretigny,  which  gave  him  the  whole  Aquita-  ^^etigny. 
nian  domain  of  the  Angevin  kings  in  its  largest  extent, 
together  with  Ponthieu,  not  as  French  fiefs,  but  in  full 
sovereignty ;  while  he,  on  his  side,  renounced  his  claim 
to  the  crown  of  France. 

Already,  in  1357,  after  a  disastrous  campaign  in  Scot- 
land, he  had  2:iven  up  his  desio^ns  ae^ainst  Scot- 

00  Scottish 

tish  independence,  and  had  concluded  a  treaty  independ- 
which  ransomed  and  restored  King  David  to  his 
throne. 

83.  Loss  of  French  Conquests.  The  Black  Prince 
was  sent,  in  1363,  to  govern  Aquitaine  as  its  duke,  and 
showed  little  wisdom  in  his  conduct  there.  He  wasted 
his  army  in  a  foolish  and  wicked  undertaking  in  Spain, 
and  oppressed  his  subjects  with  taxes  which  caused  bit- 
ter discontent.  P'rance,  meantime,  acquired  an  able 
king,  by  the  death  of  the  captive  King  John  and  the 
accession  of  his  son  Charles.  The  latter  saw  that  the 
English  hold  of  Aquitaine  had  grown  weak,  and  he  found 
excuses  for  reopening  w^ar.  In  the  camimigns  that  fol- 
lowed, the  French  commander,  Bertrand  Du  Guesclin, 
avoided  battle,  but  harassed  the  English  and  wore  out 
their  strength. 

A  single  hideous  triumph,  eternally  disgraceful  to  his 
memory,  was  won  by  the  Black  Prince.  Having  retaken 
the  city  of  Limoo^es  (1370),  after  revolt,  he  or- 

J  o        \    u/     /'  Massacre 

dered  a  general   massacre   of   the   inhabitants,  at 
and  allowed  3000  men,  women,  and  children  to 
be  butchered  in   cold  blood.     A   possible  palliation  for 
the  fiendish  deed  is  found  in  the  fact   that  the  prince 
was  a  sick  and  dying  man,  already  suffering  from   some 
disease  which  slowly  consumed  his  life.     He  went  home 


iy6 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1371-1377 


to  England  the  next  year,  leaving  his  brother  John,  Duke 
of  Lancaster,  called  John  of  Gaunt,  or  Ghent  (from  his 
Flemish  birthplace),  in  command.  Under  John  of  Gaunt, 
the  English  lost  ground  in  France  so  steadily  that,  in 
1375,  when  a  truce  was  made,  they  held  nothing  but  the 
five  cities  of  Bordeaux,  Bayonne,  Brest,  Cherbourg,  and 
Calais. 

84.  The  Church  and  the  Nation.  —  Wiclif  and  the 
First  Reformers.     At  this  period  a  new  discontent  with 

things  in  state  and 
church  was  spread- 
ing in  the  minds  of 
the  English  people. 
The  Plague  had 
shocked  and  shaken 
old  habits  of  feel- 
ing ;  disaster  and 
shame  in  France 
were  blotting  the 
memory  of  Crecy 
and  Poitiers  ;  griev- 
ous taxes  were 
weighing  the  coun- 
try down  ;  its  com- 
merce was  being 
harassed  by  priva- 
teers and  pirates  at 
sea ;  the  king  was  in  his  dotage  ;  the  heir  to  the  throne 
was  dying ;  his  brother,  John  of  Gaunt,  was  distrusted 
and  disliked  ;  politically  the  kingdom  was  in  an  evil  plight. 
The  state  of  the  church  was  even  worse.  The  popes 
of  "the  Babylonian  Captivity,"  at  Avignon  (see  page  161) 
were  looked  upon  as  enemies  in  league  with  France ;  yet 
they  drew  an   ever-swelling  revenue   from  the  English 


JOHN    OF    GAUNT. 


I37I-I377]       VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR. 


177 


church,  and  their  tribunals  encroached  more  and  more 
on  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Enghsh  courts.  The  Eng- 
Ush  clergy,  holding  lands  that  were  reckoned,  when  the 
fourteenth  century  closed,  to  equal  half  the  area  of  the 


JOHN    WICLIF. 


kingdom,  were  demoralized  by  the  enormous  wealth  they 
controlled. 

The  general  discontent  with  the  church  found  many 
voices  ;  but  two  were  heard  above  the  rest,  and  stirred 
a  great  movement  of  revolt  and  reform.  One  wiciifand 
was  that  of  John  Wiclif,  teacher  and  preacher  i^^ngiand. 
of  Oxford,  —  early  among  the  leaders  of  Christian  pro- 
test against  grasping  worldliness  in  the  church  of  Christ. 
Wiclif  attacked  monks,  friars,  and   worldly  priests,  and 


1/8  THE    DECLINE    OF   FEUDALISM.       [1371-1377 

sought  to  institute  in  their  place  an  order  of  "  poor 
priests,"  pious  men  who  went  among  the  people,  as  the 
friars  had  done  at  first,  preaching  and  doing  good.  The 
other  voice  was  that  of  William  Langland,  who  wrote  a 
strange  and  remarkable  allegorical  poem,  "  The  Vision 
of  Piers  Plowman,"  idealizing  and  exalting  the  humble 
life  of  honest  work  and  simple  ways. 

85.  The  "  Good  Parliament."  A  party  of  barons, 
headed  by  John  of  Gaunt,  who  wished  to  get  the  wealth 
of  the  church  into  their  own  hands,  attempted  to  give 
Wiclif's  opinions  a  political  turn.  For  a  time  they  con- 
trolled the  government,  and  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of 
Lancaster,  was  beheved  to  be  planning  to  make  himself 
king  when  his  father  died,  setting  aside  the  young  son 
of  his  dying  brother,  the  Black  Prince.  The  Prince 
rallied  his  failing  strength  to  defeat  the  scheme,  and  his 
recourse  was  not,  as  it  would  have  been  in  earlier  times, 
to  a  rival  party  in  the  baronage,  but  to  the  Commons  in 
Parliament,  with  whom  he  joined  hands.  Supported  by 
Impeach-  ^i^'  ^^^  Housc  of  Commons  exercised  for  the 
ment.  fjj-g|-  time  (1376)  the  power  to  imj^each  minis- 
ters and  officers  of  the  king  and  to  bring  them  to  trial 
before  the  Lords.  The  "  Good  Parliament,"  as  it  was 
called,  which  did  this,  attempted  much  more  excellent 
work  ;  but  the  Black  Prince  died,  the  Duke  of  Lancaster 
regained  power,  and  what  Parliament  had  done  was 
undone,  except  that  the  precedent  of  impeachment  re- 
mained, as  a  constitutional  fact  which  could  not  be  wiped 
out.  In  the  next  year,  the  long  reign  of  Edward  III. 
was  ended  by  his  death,  and  Richard  II.,  the  Black 
Prince's  son,  then  ten  years  of  age,  was  raised  without 
resistance  to  the  throne. 

86.  Richard   II.    and    the     Peasant    Revolt.      The 
poor  boy  who  was  crowned  and   lifted  to  the  throne  in 


1377]  VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR.  179 

1377  is  a  pathetic  figure  in  English  history.  Fortune 
was  unkind  to  him.  He  had  no  good  teacher,  no  consci- 
entious minister,  no  protecting  friend.     His  selfish  and 


TOMB    OF   THE    BLACK    PRINCE    IN    CANTERBURY   CATHEDRAL. 
His  helmet,  shield,  and  shirt  of  mail  are  shown  above. 

envious  uncles  were  distrusted  and  feared.  The  ruinous 
wars  with  France  and  Scotland,  waged  in  his  name,  were 
carried  blunderingly  on,  from  bad  to  worse  results. 

The  ferment  of  general  discontent,  the  resistance-  of 
landlords  to  rising  wages,  the  increasing  independence 
of  the  peasantry,  and  the  thinking  which  Wiclif  and  his 


i8o 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1377-1381 


disciples  stirred  up,  had  given  a  strangely  early  birth  to 

extreme  democratic  ideas.     Rhymes  and  popular  sayings 

that  seem  to  belong  to   the  nineteenth   century   rather 

than  to  the  fourteenth  became  part  of  the  common  talk. 

"  When  Adam  delved  and  Eve  span, 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman  ?  " 

is  a  couplet  still  familiar  which  comes  from  those  days. 

In  1 38 1  a  grievous  poll-tax  gave  fresh  provocation  to 
the  feeling  that  was  abroad,  and  it  flamed  suddenly  into 
revolt.  Almost  at  once  the  peasants  were  everywhere 
in  arms.  From  Kent  and  neighboring  counties  a  host 
said  to  be  100,000  in  number  was  assembled  and  marched 
in  s^ood  order  to   London,  led  by  Wat  Tyler, 

"Wat  Tyler,  °  ^  J  J        ■> 

Jack  Straw,  Jack  Straw,  and  John  Ball,  as  the  leaders  were 

John  Ball.  . 

known.  In  London,  many  obnoxious  persons 
were  put  to  death,  including  the  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, then  chancellor, 
who  was  supposed  to  be 
the  author  of  the  tax. 
But  the  young  king,  boy 
of  fifteen  as  he  was,  went 
boldly  into  the  midst  of 
the  insurgents  and  mas- 
tered them  by  his  confi- 
dent bearing.  They  were 
given  charters  of  freedom 
from  villeinage,  which 
were  their  principal  de- 
mand, and  dispersed  to 
their  homes  ;  notwith- 
standing that  Tyler,  their 
leader,  was  wickedly  slain 
in  their  presence  by  some  of  the  angry  attendants  of  the 
king.     In  Richard's  conduct  throughout  this  affair  it  is 


JOHN    BALL    PREACHING    FROM    HORSE- 
BACK,   FROM    AN    OLD    MS. 


1381-1384]       VAINGLORY    IN   FOREIGN    WAR.  181 

impossible  not  to  see  a  strength  of  mind  and  character 
that  was  capable  of  great  things,  if  it  could  have  been 
rightly  trained. 

The  revolt  of  the  peasants  was  ended  in  a  week ;  then 
a  cruel  retaliation  began,  and  no  less  than  1 500  Result  of 
are  said  to  have  been  tried  and  condemned  to  *^®  revolt, 
death.  But  the  main  object  of  their  rising  had  been 
gained.  "  The  custom  of  commuting  the  old  labor-rents 
for  money  payments  became  universal ;  "  ^  villeinage  rap- 
idly disappeared. 

87.  Wiclif  and  the  Lollards.  The  peasants'  rising, 
attributed  in  part  to  the  democratic  influence  of  Wiclif's 
"  poor  priests,"  caused  many  in  the  upper  classes  who 
had  favored  his  teachings  to  draw  back.  Others  shrank 
from  an  issue  that  Wiclif  had  opened  with  the  existing 
church,  on  the  subject  of  papal  indulgences  and  abso- 
lutions, and  on  the  worship  of  images  and  saints.  His 
enemies  in  the  church  then  made  head  against  him,  and 
he  was  forced  to  retire  from  Oxford  to  a  parish,  where 
he  died  in  1384.  A  persecution,  mild  at  first,  but  violent 
in  the  following  reigns,  fell  on  his  disciples,  who  came 
to  be  called  "  Lollards,"  a  nickname  borrowed  from  the 
Dutch. 

Political  and  social  aims  continued  to  be  mixed  with 
the  religious  ideas  of  Lollardism  during  most  of  the  fif- 
teenth century  ;  but  its  influence  as  a  religious  move- 
ment was  the  longest  and  the  most  deeply  felt,  wiciifs 
Wiclif,  like  Luther,  gave  the  Bible  to  the  people  ^^^^^• 
in  their  own  tongue,  by  translating  it,  and  Wiclif's  Bible 
made  his  influence  lasting,  sowing  seeds  in  the  English 
mind  which  no  persecution  could  destroy. 

88.  The    King    and    the    Ducal    Factions.      During 

1  J.  T.  Thorold  Rogers,  S/r  Centuries  of  Work  and  Wages,  vol. 
i.  ch.  ix. 


I82 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1386-1396 


Richard's  minority  his 
reign  was  filled  with 
factious  contests,  end- 
ing (1386)  in  the  tri- 
umph of  a  baronial 
party  headed  by  the 
youngest  of  the  king's 
uncles,  Thomas,  Duke 
of  Gloucester,  which 
took  possession  of  the 
government  in  a  vio- 
lent way.  Richard, 
for  some  reason,  was 
submissive  to  this 
usurpation  until  he 
had  passed  his  twen- 
ty-third year.  Then, 
suddenly,  one  day,  in 
1389,  he  asserted  his 
rights,  dismissed  the  commission  of  regency  that  had 
been  set  over  him,  and  took  the  reins,  without  challenge, 
into  his  own  hands. 

89.  Richard's  Personal  Reign  and  his  Deposition. 
For  seven  years  from  that  day  King  Richard  reigned 
wisely  and  well.  He  stopped  the  miserable  French 
war,  and  when,  in  1 394,  he  lost  his  excellent  young  wife, 
Anne  of  Bohemia,  he  tried  to  heal  the  enmity  between 
England  and  France  by  marrying  the  French  king's 
daughter,  a  child  of  eight  years.  He  sought  to  protect 
the  peasants  from  oppression  by  the  landlords  and  the 
Lollards  from  persecution  by  the  church.  His  peace 
policy  was  detestable  to  the  barons,  his  justice  to  the 
landlords,  his  tolerance  to  the  clergy  ;  and  thus  he  made 
powerful  enemies  by  every  good  thing  that  he  did,  while 


RICHARD   II. 


1398-1399]       VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR.  1 83 

the  friends  that  he  won  were  weak.     His  own  kinsmen 
were  the  most  dangerous  of  his  foes. 

Possibly  there  was  then  a  situation  in  which  he  saw 
deadly  danger  to  himself  and  his  crown.  At  all  events, 
by  some  malignant  influence,  which  nobody  has  rightly 
explained,  an  evil  change  was  suddenly  wrought  in  the 
character  of  his  reign.  In  1398,  he  assembled  a  packed 
Parliament,  which  voted  him  certain  taxes  for  life,  and 
which  delegated  all  its  authority  to  a  committee  of  his 
friends.  This  gave  him  a  more  absolute  power  than 
any  English  king  had  possessed  before.  In  the  first  act 
of  Shakespeare's  *'  King  Richard  the  Second  "  there  is  a 
probably  true  representation  of  the  autocratic  temper 
with  which  he  ruled  England  that  year.  As  set  forth  in 
the  play,  he  banished  his  cousin  Henry,  Duke  of  Here- 
ford (son  of  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster),  from 
England  ;  and  when,  in  the  next  year,  the  old  Banish- 
duke  died,  he  seized  the  Lancastrian  lands.  nl^Jy^of 
The  banished  Henry  then  came  boldly  back  to  i^ancaster. 
confront  the  king,  having  assurances  of  strong  support. 
He  landed  with  a  small  force  in  Yorkshire  (July  4,  1399), 
giving  out  that  he  sought  only  to  recover  his  inheritance  ; 
but,  gathering  an  army  as  he  advanced,  he  soon  appeared 
as  the  champion  of  public  rights.  Richard  was  in  Ireland 
at  the  time,  attending  to  troubles  of  the  "  English  Pale." 
He  returned  to  find  himself  almost  without  a  man  at  his 
back,  and,  recognizing  his  helplessness,  he  surrendered 
both  his  person  and  his  crown.  Taken  to  Lon-  Deposition 
don  and  placed  in  the  Tower,  he  signed  a  formal  of  Richard, 
abdication,  and  the  vacant  throne  was  bestowed  by  au- 
thority of  Parliament  on  Henry  of  Lancaster,  as  being 
*'  descended  bv  ri^rht  line  of  the  blood,  cominof  from  the 
good  lord  King  Henry  HI."  Once  more  the  right  of 
Parliament  to  control  the  succession  was  made  good. 


1 84 


THE    DECLINE    OF   FEUDALISM. 


[1399 


Chaucer. 


90.  The  Beginning  of  a  Great  Literature  in  the 
English  Language.  The  supreme  Uterary  fact  of  this 
period  in  English  history  is  the  fact  that,  when  England 
produced  a  poet  of  the  highest  order  of  poetical  genius, 
he  found  his  native  language  not  only  fit  for 
his  song,  but  so  far  respected  in  the  educated 
circles  of  the  day  that  he  could  bring  it  into  use.  At 
no  earlier  time  could  a  poet  of  Chaucer's  class,  appealing 

to  the  cultivated 
and  not  the  com- 
mon taste  of  his 
age,  have  been  able 
to  write  in  Eng- 
lish verse.  The  de- 
mand of  the  audi- 
ence for  which  he 
wrote  would  have 
l)een  for  Latin  or 
ior  French.  But 
now,  for  the  first 
time  in  three  cen- 
turies, the  language 
of  England  had 
again  become  the 
language  of  its  lit- 
erature, for  learned 
and  unlearned,  for 
court  and  cottage 
alike  ;  and  the  fact  had  great  meaning.  For  the  char- 
acter, for  the  individuality  of  the  nation,  we  may  say 
that  it  dates  a  coming  of  age. 

Chaucer  touched  England  with  the  new  warmth  of 
imagination  that  had  been  kindled  in  the  Italian  mind. 
In  the  "Canterbury  Tales,"  which  describe  a  company 


GEOFFREY    CHAUCER. 


1399]  VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR.  185 

of  pilgrims  on  their  way  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas 
a  Beckct,  he  painted  a  scene  from  luigUsh  life  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  —  a  procession  of  the  characters  in 
its  society,  —  the  historical  value  of  which  is  quite  equal 
to  its  poetical  worth. 

If  Chaucer  did  not  stand  so  high  above  them  all,  his 
fellow  poets  of  the  time  would  interest  us  more  than  they 
do  ;  for  they  were  no  mean  heralds  of  the  great  literature 
which  En^rland  was  then  makins:  ready  to  give 

.  .  Chaucer's 

to  the  world.  Langland's  "  Vision  of  Piers  contempo- 
Plowman,"  John  Gower's  ''Confessio  Amantis," 
and  the  "  Bruce  "  of  the  Scottish  poet  John  Barbour,  would 
have  given  a  fair  distinction  to  this  age,  if  it  had  offered 
no  higher  achievement  ;  while  Wiclif,  in  his  translation  of 
the  Bible  and  in  his  tracts,  had  opened  a  great  common 
school  for  the  cultivation  of  English  prose. 

The    enactment    of    a    statute   in    1362,    requiring    all 
pleadings  in  court  to  be  in  the  English  tongue,  sovereign- 
shows  the    completeness  with   which   tTie   Ian-  EngiiSf 
guage  of  the  people  had  now  recovered  its  sov-  language, 
ereignty  in  the  land. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCTT    QUESTIONS. 

75.  Edward  II.  and  his  Favorites. 
Topics. 

1.  Gaveston  and  Lancaster. 

2.  Battle  of  Bannockburn. 

3.  The  Despensers. 

4.  Lancaster's  death. 
Reference.  —  Stubbs,  E.  P.,  263-281. 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  What  danger  to  a  kingdom  in  having 
a  weak  son  succeed  a  strong  father?  (2.)  How  does  a  country 
gain  under  a  strong  ruler  ?  (3.)  Illustrate  these  points  from 
kings  since  the  Norman  Conquest. 


l86  VAINGLORY   IN    FOREIGN   WAR. 

76.  Deposition  and  Death  of  Edward  II. 

Topics. 

1.  Treachery  of  Queen  Isabella  and  Edward's  death. 

2.  Prince  Edward  as  guardian  of  the  kingdom. 

3.  Mortimer's  death. 

References.  — Gardiner,  i.  229;  Green,  210,  211  ;  Stubbs,  E.  P., 
285-288;  Ransome,  75;  Taswell-Langmead,  204,  205.  Lords 
Ordainers  :  Gardiner,  i.  226;  Bright,  i.  200,  201;  Green,  208; 
Stubbs,  E.  P.,  270-272 ;  Ransome,  74 ;  Green,  H.  E.  P.,  i. 
362-367;  Taswell-Langmead,  265,  266. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  By  the  deposition  of  Edward  what 
great  right  of  the  people  over  the  kingship  was  reasserted  ?  (2.) 
What  great  theory  of  government  was  enunciated  in  this  reign  ? 
(Stubbs,  E.  P.,  281.) 

77.  Beginning  of  the  Personal  Reign  of  Edward  III. 

Topics. 

1.  His  marriage. 

2.  War  with  Scotland. 

3.  Crowning  of  John  Balliol  and  renewal  of  the  war. 
Reference.  —  Warburton,  Edward  III.,  16-29. 

78.  The  War  with  France. 

Topics. 

1.  Edward's  claim  to  the  French  crown. 

2.  Edward's  allies. 

3.  Battle  of  Sluys  and  the  first  six  years  of  the  w^ar. 

4.  Crecy  and  the  English  bowmen  ;  siege  of  Calais. 

5.  Successes  and  reverses  of  the  Scots. 

Reference.  —  Warburton,  Edward  III.,  34-44?  5^-7 5^  80-84,  94- 

98,  103-133- 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  did  Parliament  uphold  Edward 
in  his  war  with  France  ?     (2.)  What  right  of  consultation  did 
Parliament  thus  assume?     (See  Wool  and  Politics,  Gibbins,  48, 
and  Ransome,  1 1 2.) 

79.  The  Black  Death  and  its  Effects. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king's  return  and  his  welcome. 

2.  The  plague  and  the  social  effect  of  its  ravages. 

3.  Attempts  to  revive  old  labor  claims. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.     187 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  248-250  ;  Bright,  i.  229,  267  ;  Green, 
247,  250;  Colby,  101-103 ;  Guest,  269-271;  Gibbins,  70-74; 
Rogers,  cli.  viii.;  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  40-42,  60,65,82, 
90,  175,  177. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  For  what  were  labor  claims  com- 
muted.? (2.)  For  what  had  military  service  been  commuted.'' 
(3.)  Show  why  these  were  steps  towards  freedom.  (4.)  Why  did 
the  ravages  of  the  plague  raise  wages?  (Gibbins,  71.)  (5.)  On 
what  are  wages  dependent  to-day  ? 

80.  Edward  III.  and  the  Parliament. 

Topics. 

1.  King's  demand  for  money  and  growing  boldness  of  Commons. 

2.  Separation  of  Commons  and  Lords. 
References.  —  Ransome,  75-83;  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  ii.  ch,  xvi. 
Research  Questions.  — (i.)  Why  was  it  natural  for  the  Lords  to 

favor  war  while  the  Commons  opposed  it  ?  (2.)  Our  House  of 
Representatives  corresponds  to  what  house  of  Parliament .''  (3.) 
What  power  in  common  do  both  have  ?  (4.)  In  the  division  of 
the  houses,  where  did  the  clergy  take  their  seats  ?  (5.)  Why  ?  (6.) 
Who  were  the  representatives  of  the  clergy? 

81.  Industrial  and  Commercial  Progress. 

Topics. 

1.  Introduction  of  Flemish  weavers. 

2.  Merchant  Adventurers. 

References.  —  Ashley,  book  ii.  ch.  iii.  Edward  1 1 L  and  the  Flem- 
ish weavers  :  Gibbins,  53.  Industry  and  trade  :  Gardiner,  i.  248- 
250  ;  Bright,  i.  255-258  :  Colby,  87-89,  92,  93  ;  Gibbins,  chs.  iv., 
v.;  Rogers,  chs.  vi.,  viii.;  Traill,  ii.  100-114.  142-146,  193,  252- 
259. 

82.  Renewed  War  with  France. 

Topics. 

1.  The  Black  Prince  in  Languedoc. 

2.  Battle  of  Poitiers  and  treaty  of  Bretigny. 

3.  King  David  of  Scotland  restored. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  256,  257. 


l88  VAINGLORY    IN    FOREIGN    WAR. 

83.  Loss  of  French  Conquests. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Black  Prince  in  Aquitaine  and  the  massacre  of  Limoges. 

2.  Enghsh  losses. 
Reference. —  Bright,  i.  235-241. 

84.    The   Church   and   the   Nation.  —  Wiclif  and  the 

First  Reformers. 
Topics. 

1.  Discontent  in  England,  in  state  and  church. 

2.  John  Wiclif  and  William  Langland. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  257-261  ;  Warburton,  246-256.  John 
Wiclif:  Gardiner,  i.  261-263,  266,  269;  Bright,  i.  266,  267;  Green, 
235-244;  Colby,  103-105;  Rogers,  247-273;  Traill,  ii.  152,  153, 
160-172,  288.  The  "Babylonish  Captivity"  of  the  church: 
Encyclopaedia  Britannica. 

85.  The  '«  Good  Parliament." 

Topics. 

1.  John  of  Gaunt. 

2.  First  instance  of  the  power  of  impeachment. 

3.  Lancaster  again  in  power  and  death  of  Edward  III. 
References. —  Gardiner,  i.  262;  Green,  231-235;  Stubbs,  C.  H., 

ii.  428-435  ;  Taswell-Langmead,  277,  278. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  is   meant  by  impeachment? 
(Ransome.  79.)     (2.)  Who  exercises  the  power  of  impeachment 
in   the  United  States?     (3.)  How  often  and  in  w'hat  instances 
has  it  been  exercised  ?     (4.)  What  would  justify  its  use  ? 

86.  Richard  II.  and  the  Peasant  Revolt. 

Topics. 

1.  Drawbacks  in  Richard's  circumstances. 

2.  Discontent  and  uprising  of  the  peasantry. 

3.  Richard's  courage  and  suppression  of  the  revolt. 
References.  —  Peasants'  revolt :  Gardiner,  i.  268,  269 ;  Bright, 

i.  244,  245  ;  Green.  250-255  ;  Colby,  105-109:  Cunningham  and 
McArthur,  42,  43;  Gibbins,  78;  Rogers,  256-266 ;  Traill,  ii.  138, 
152,  153,  170,  247,  248-250. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Discuss  the  chances  of  good  gov- 
ernment during  the  minority  of  a  king.  (2.)  How  might  the  king's 
education  suffer  and  entail  bad  government  later  ?  Illustrate  from 
Henry  III.  and  Richard  II. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND    QUESTIONS.       189 

87.  Wiclif  and  the  Lollards. 
Topics. 

1.  Reaction  against  Lollardism  ;  its  political  and  social  aims. 

2.  Wicklif 's  service  to  the  people. 
Reference.  —  Warburton,  Edward  III.,  250-255. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  saved  Wiclif  from  the  anger 

of  the  pope  ?  (Guest,  293.)  (2.)  Of  what  importance  was  it  in 
the  history  of  the  church  that  England's  queen  was  from  Bo- 
hemia ?  (Guest,  306.)  (3.)  Wlio  were  the  "  poor  priests "  or 
Lollards?     (Gibbins,  75  ;  Guest,  313.) 

88.  The  King  and  the  Ducal  Factions. 
Topic. 

I.  Usurpation  of  the  Duke  of  Gloucester. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  278-280. 

89.  Richard's  Personal  Reign  and  his  Deposition. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king's  efforts  at  good  government. 

2.  Change  in  the  character  of  his  reign. 

3.  Banishment  of  the  Duke  of  Hereford  and  his  return. 

4.  Richard's  surrender  and  abdication. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  280-286. 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  What  deposition  of  a  king  preceded 
this  one  ?     (2.)  Significance  of  these  facts  ? 

90.  The  Beginning  of  a  Great  Literature  in  the  English 

Language. 

Topics. 

1.  Condition  of  the  English  language. 

2.  Chaucer  and  "  The  Canterbury  Tales." 

3.  Other  writers. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  258,  270-272;  Bright,  i.  271-274; 
Green,  217-222;  Bright,  i.  271-274;  Guest,  278-291;  Traill,  ii. 
207-23 1 . 

Research  Questions.—  (i.)  Why  did  the  pilgrims  go  to  Canter- 
bury ?  (2.)  In  what  does  the  historical  value  of  "  The  Canterbury 
Tales  "  consist  ?  (3.)  Of  what  sort  were  the  chief  gains  made  by 
the  people  under  the  Plantagenet  line  ?  (4.)  Name  those  of  the 
family  who  may  be  called  great,  and  tell  why. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

MEDIAEVAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND. 

91.   Norman  Influence  on  English  Civilization.     In 

manners  and  modes  of  living,  if  not  otherwise,  the  Nor- 
mans who  came  to  England  in  the  eleventh  century  were 
more  advanced  than  the  people  whom  they  subdued ; 
and  the  reasons  for  their  being  so  are  plain.  They  had 
taken  from  the  Franks,  or  French,  a  better  degree  of 
culture,  which  the  latter  owed  to  the  Roman  institutions 
and  social  forms  that  they  spared  when  they  overran 
Gaul.  The  English,  who  spared  Httle  that  they  found 
in  Britain,  and  who  had  learned  nothing  from  the  older 
civilization  until  after  a  Christian  church  was  restored 
among  them,  were  naturally  rising  from  barbarism  by 
slower  steps.  They  had  been  hindered  in  their  progress, 
moreover,  by  the  intrusion  upon  them  of  the  still  more 
barbarous  Danes. 

As  a  consequence,  their  habits,  and  the  general  state 
in  which  they  lived,  were  much  scorned  by  their  Norman 
conquerors.  The  houses  and  the  dress  of  even  the  Eng- 
lish nobles  were  described  as  being  mean,  and  all  classes 
were  particularly  accused  of  gluttony  and  intemperance. 
The  early  chroniclers  who  speak  of  these  things  com- 
plain, at  the  same  time,  that  the  new-comers  were  badly 
intemper-  influenced  by  English  example,  in  the  matter  of 
ance.  intemperance  and  in  other  habits  of  life  ;  but 

there  cannot  be  a  doubt  that  the  civilizing  of  English 
society  was  much  quickened  in  many  ways  by  the  coming 
of  the  Normans  into  the  land. 


MEDIEVAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND.  191 

92.  MedisBval  Habitations.  At  their  best,  however, 
the  conditions  of  Ute,  during  three  or  four  centuries  after 
the  Norman  Conquest,  and  the  manners  and  mental  habits 
growing  out  of  such  conditions,  did  not  rise  above  a  stage 
that  would  seem  very  rude  to  modern  men.  The  castle, 
which  the  Normans  introduced,  was  a  lordly  residence 
more  imposing  than  the  homely  timber  dwelling  of  the 
Saxon  thane ;  but  it  cannot  have  offered  more  comfort, 
or  much  more  of  the  means  of  refinement  to  domestic 
life.     It  was  not   i^lanned    to  be  a  home,    but 

The  castle, 
a  fort,  —  a  stronghold,  —  a  thick-walled  inclos- 

ure  for  fighting  men.  The  light,  the  air,  the  chamber- 
room,  the  privacy,  the  conveniences,  the  cheerful  and 
pleasant  surroundings  that  we  associate  with  happy  fam- 
ily life,  were  certainly  not  found  behind  its  grim  walls. 

Its  one  real  ''  living-room,"  so  to  speak,  was  the  great 
hall,  where  everything  centred,  and  which  seems  to  have 
been  put  to  every  kind  of  use.  There  the  long  table  at 
which  all  ate  together  was  spread,  on  trestles  which  the 
servants  removed  at  the  end  of  the  repast.  A  Thecastie 
huge  salt-cellar,  placed  conspicuously  on  the  ^^^^• 
board,  divided  the  lord  of  the  castle,  his  family  and  his 
guests,  who  sat  above  it,  from  those  of  lower  degree, 
who  sat  below.  The  viands  of  the  feast  were  se^;ved, 
not  on  plates,  but  on  thick  slices  of  bread,  called  trench- 
ers,^ one  of  which  appears  to  have  been  supplied  to  two 
persons  for  their  common  use.  Forks  were  unknown  ; 
fingers  were  used  instead. 

The  same  hall  was  the  scene  of  all  social  gatherings 
of  the  castle,  its  indoor  pastimes,  its  evening  entertain- 
ments, in  which  wandering  minstrels,  jugglers,  and  dan- 

1  The  trencher  of  bread  was  displaced  in  time  by  one  of  wood, 
which  remained  long  in  use.  The  name  came  from  the  French 
word  tranche7\  to  cut. 


192 


THE    DECLINE    OF   FEUDALISM. 


cers  took  their  parts.  Then,  when  sleeping-time  came, 
its  floor  was  strewn  with  beds  of  straw,  and  it  became 
the  common  dormitory  of  the  men  of  inferior  rank.  A 
few  other  bedchambers,  for  the  family  and  for  guests  of 
rank,  were  provided  on  an  upper  floor ;  but  it  seems  to 
have  been  the  common  practice  for  a  number  of  persons 
to  occupy  the  same  room,  and  beds  and  furniture  were 
primitive  in  simplicity  until  quite  late  in  mediaeval  times. 
Another  lordly  residence  was  the  manor-house,  which 


MANOR-HOUSE    AT    MELLICHOPE,    SHROPSHIRE,    LATTER    HALF    OF 

TWELFTH    CENTURY. 


had  preceded  the  castle,  and  which  began,  in  the  thir- 
teenth century,  to  supersede  it,  as  a  place  of  habitation. 
The  greater  lords,  possessing  many  manors,  in  a  scat- 
tered estate,  appear  to  have  occupied  different 
manor-houses  in  turn,  for  the  purpose  of  holding 
their  manorial  courts,  and  for  using  the  produce  of  each 
manor  on  the  spot,  as  well  as  for  collecting  dues  and  fines. 
As  described  by  Professor  J.  T.  Thorold  Rogers,  a  care- 
ful student  of  the  period,  these  houses,  in  the  thirteenth 


Manor- 
houses. 


MEDIEVAL    LIFE    IN    ENGLAND.  193 

and  fourteenth  centuries,  were  furnished  in  an  extremely 
scanty  way.  "  Glass,  though  by  no  means  excessively 
dear,  appears  to  have  been  rarely  used.  A  table  put 
on  trestles,  and  laid  aside  when  out  of  use,  a  few  forms 
and  stools,  or  a  long  bench  stuffed  with  straw  or  wool, 
covered  with  a  straw  cushion,  .  .  .  with  one  or  two  chairs 
of  wood  or  straw,  and  a  chest  or  two  of  linen,  formed  the 
hall  furniture.      A  brass  pot  or  two  for  boiling, 

^  Furniture. 

and  two  or  three  brass  dishes  ;  a  few  wooden 
platters  and  trenchers,  or  more  rarely  of  pewter  ;  an  iron 
or  latten  ^  candlestick  ;  a  kitchen  knife  or  two  ;  a  box  or 
barrel  for  salt  ;  and  a  brass  ewer  and  basin,  formed  the 
movables  of  the  ordinary  house.  The  walls  were  gar- 
nished with  mattocks,  scythes,  reaping  hooks,  buckets, 
corn  measures,  and  empty  sacks.  The  dormitory  con- 
tained a  rude  bed,  and  but  rarely  sheets  and  blankets, 
for  the  gown  of  the  day  was  generally  the  coverlet  at 

night.    -^ 

In  construction  and  arrangement,  as  well  as  in  furni- 
ture, both  castles  and  manor-houses  were  slowly  im- 
proved. Fireplaces  with  chimney  flues  in  the  walls 
appear  to  have  come  into  use  at  some  time  during  the 
thirteenth  century,  and  must  have  immensely  raised 
the  comfort  of  the  better  dwellings  in  winter  weather  ; 
but  heavy  "hangings"  or  draperies  of  some  ..Hang- 
description,  on  the  walls,  were  always  needed  ^"^^•" 
by  those  who  could  afford  so  expensive  a  luxury,  to  lessen 
the  cold  draughts  of  air. 

The  manor-house  was  commonly  built  of  stone  ;  but 
the  tenements  surrounding  it  were  structures  of  the 
rudest  sort.      "  We  may  believe,"   Professor  Rogers  goes 

^  Latten  was  a  mixed  metal,  differing  little  from  brass,  but  pre- 
pared in  thin  sheets  for  many  uses  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

2  Rogers,  History  of  Agricultin-e  and  P?ices,  vol.  i.  pp.  12,  13. 


194  THE    DECLINE   OF   FEUDALISM. 

on  to  say,  that  "the  peasant's  home  was  built  of  the 
Peasants'  coarsest  material,  most  frequently  of  wattles 
huts.  daubed  with    mud   or   clay."     Its   furnishings 

were  as  poor  and  comfortless  as  the  house.  "  Glass 
was  unknown,  fuel  comparatively  dear,  and  cleanliness 
all  but  impossible.  .  .  .  The  purchase  of  a  pound  of 
candles  would  have  almost  absorbed  a  workman's  daily 
wages."  ^ 

The  town  dwellings  of  prosperous  merchants  and  mas- 
ter-craftsmen were  probably  improved  in  comfort  quite 
rjQ^^^  as  fast  as  the  manor-houses  of  the  lords.     Shop 

dwellings,  g^j^^^  dwelling  were  usually,  if  not  always,  to- 
gether, the  former  on  the  main  floor  of  the  building,  with 
a  booth  or  open  shed  in  its  front,  for  the  displaying  and 
sale  of  wares.  The  laboring  poor  of  the  towns  are  not 
likely  to  have  fared  better  than  the  villein  peasantry  of 
the  country  places. 

93.  Pood  and  Drink.  Little  was  known  in  mediaeval 
times  of  the  variety  in  food  that  we  now  enjoy.  Except- 
ing meats,  which  were  much  the  same  as  in  modern  times, 
the  articles  of  diet  were  few,  even  for  those  who  could 
buy  without  stint.  The  methods  of  preserving  meats 
were  imperfect  ;  the  sea-salt  used  was  poor  in  quality 
and  very  dear.  Consequently,  it  is  conjectured,  there 
was  much  eating  of  flesh  and  fish  in  a  more  or  less  un- 
wholesome state,  and  this  was  probably  one  cause,  at 
least,  of  such  loathsome  diseases  as  leprosy  and  scurvy, 
which  prevailed  in  that  age.  Another  cause  is  found  in 
the  scanty  use  of  vegetable  foods.  Bread  —  even  wheat 
bread,  sometimes  mixed  with  barley  —  was  common  on 
the  tables  of  the  poorest  folk  ;  but  little  garden  produce 
was  raised.  Peas,  beans,  onions,  leeks,  and  possibly  cab- 
bage, are  said  to  be  the  only  green  stuffs  that  appear  in 
'  Rogers,  History  of  Agricultiire  and Pjices^  vol.  i.  p.  65. 


MEDIEVAL    LIP^E    IN    ENGLAND.  IQS 

the  gardening  or  kitchen  records  of  the  time.  As  for 
fruits,  they  would  seem  to  have  been  limited  vegetables 
to  apples  and  pears,  with  a  few  grapes  in  south-  ^^^  ^^^^^■ 
ern  England,  and  with  the  berries  that  must  have  grown 
wild.  Some  dried  fruits  —  figs,  raisins,  currants,  and 
dates  —  came  in,  at  high  prices,  from  southern  Europe, 
among  the  commodities  of  foreign  trade. 

Sugar  had  a  place  with  the  spices  in  the  list  of  rare 
luxuries  imported  from  the  east.  Honey  was  the  sub- 
stitute for  it,  but  even  honey  was  a  sweet  to  be  sparingly 
used.  A  hive  of  bees  was  a  precious  possession,  which 
men  transmitted  to  their  children  by  will. 

Ale  and  cider  were  the  common  beverages  of  those 
who  thirsted  for  more  than  water.     The  ale  was  mostly 
home-brewed,  without  hops,  flavored  with  various  herbs, 
and  probably  would  not  be  tempting  to  beer-drinkers  of 
the  present  day.     Mead,  a  stronger  drink,  much 
in   use,  was  made    by  sweetening   water   with 
honey  and  fermenting  it  with  yeast  ;  but  there  were  al- 
most   none   of  such    highly   spirituous  and  intoxicating 
liquors  as  the  whiskey,  gin,  rum,  and  brandy  of  modern 
times.     Some  strong  distillations  of  that  character,  called 
cordials,  were  little  more  than  medicinally  known.     Of 
wine-drinking  there  was  not  much  until  after  the  acces- 
sion of  Henry  H.,  whose  Angevin  dominion  embraced  the 
most  fruitful  vineyard  regions  of  France.     England  then 
became  a  great  market  for  French  wines,  espe-  -^ine- 
cially  of  those  from  Bordeaux,  and  they  were  ^^^^^^^ff- 
sold  at  prices  which   brought   them  into  extensive  use. 
Neither  tea  nor  coffee  was  heard  of  until  a  much  later 
day. 

94.  Travel  and  Vagrancy.  Roads,  neglected  since 
Roman  times,  were  increasingly  bad  ;  bridges  were  few 
and  ill-kept ;  fords  and  ferries  were  the  main  dependence 


196  THE    DECLINE   OF    FEUDALISM. 

for  crossing  streams.  Travel,  whether  on  horseback,  or 
in  litters  swinging  between  two  horses  or  mules,  or  in 
heavy  springless  vehicles,  or  on  foot,  can  seldom  have 
been  enjoyed.  And  yet,  in  all  parts  of  the  country, 
there  was  evidently  much  going  to  and  fro.  A  French 
scholar,  M.  Jusserand,  has  made  an  interesting  study  of 
Wayfaring  ^^'^^t  he  calls  ^'  English  Wayfaring  Life  "  in  the 
life.  fourteenth  century,  which  show\s  that  an  aston- 

ishing number  of  people,  of  all  classes,  was  constantly 
in  motion  on  the  roads.  The  lords,  as  we  have  seen, 
changed  residence  often,  from  manor  to  manor  of  their 
scattered  estates.  The  king  and  his  court,  for  much  the 
same  reasons,  made  frequent  visitations  to  different  royal 
demesnes.  The  king's  judges,  the  sheriffs,  the  bishops, 
all  with  considerable  retinues,  were  periodically  in  mo- 
tion from  place  to  place.  Still  more  travel  was  occasioned 
by  the  piety  or  the  penance  which  sent  great  numbers  of 
people  on  pilgrimages  to  holy  shrines. 

Besides  such  occasional  travellers,  there  seems  to  have 
been  a  swarming  vagrant  population,  which  lived  an  al- 
ways wandering  life.  It  was  made  up  of  itinerant  traders 
—  hawkers  and  pedlers  of  numerous  wares  ;  of  workmen 
in  various  industries  of  a  migratory  kind  ;  of 
ers"and  mendicant  friars,  black,  white,  and  grey  ;  of  re- 
quac  s.  ligious  quacks,  called  "  pardoners,"  who  sold 
remissions  of  penance  and  pretended  "indulgences,"  for 
the  absolution  of  sins  ;  and  of  medical  quacks,  who  sold 
nostrums  and  charms  for  every  kind  of  bodily  cure  ;  and, 
finally,  it  embraced  in  its  ranks  the  many  minstrels,  jug- 
glers, buffoons,  acrobats,  and  dancers  who  journeyed  from 
hall  to  hall,  to  entertain  the  lords  and  ladies  of  high 
degree. 

Hospitality,  among  those  who  could  afford  it,  was  a 
virtue  of  the  age,  and  travellers  of  rank  and  considera- 


MEDIEVAL   LIFE    IN    ENGLAND.  197 

tion  were  welcomed  for  a  night's  entertainment  at  castles, 
manor-houses,  and  monasteries,  as  they  passed  Hospitai- 
on  their  way.  The  poor  wayfarer,  also,  found  ^^y- 
shelter  and  rough  fare  in  the  monastery  guest-house ; 
but  travellers  of  the  middle-class  appear  to  have  supped 
and  slept  with  great  discomfort  in  wretched  roadside 
inns. 

Royal  journeys  were  something  for  the  country  to 
dread.  A  crowd  of  followers,  often  disorderly,  trailed 
after  the  king  and  court,  while  a  more  insolent  and  alarm- 
ing swarm  of  official  "purveyors  "  swept  on  in  advance, 
"  taking  the  provisions  of  the  husbandman,  or  demand- 
ing his  services,  and  paying  either  at  nominal  puj-^ey- 
prices  or  not  at  all.  Every  old  woman  trem-  ^"^®' 
bled  for  her  poultry,  and  the  archbishop  in  his  palace 
trembled  for  his  household  and  stud,  until  the  king  had 
gone  by."  ^  This  oppressive  practice  of  ''purveyance," 
rooted  in  ancient  custom,  was  one  of  the  abuses  of 
royalty  which  the  English  people  had  much  trouble  in 
bringing  to  a  stop. 

95.  Monks  and  Friars.  There  is  a  wide  difference 
to  be  kept  in  mind  between  the  monks  and  the  friars 
of  mediaeval  times.  They  belonged  to  very  different 
religious  orders,  and  represented  very  different  religious 
ideas.  The  monk,  like  the  nun,  shut  himself  in  his  con- 
vent or  monastery,  to  spend  his  time  in  religious  exer- 
cises, in  study,  in  making  copies  of  books,  and  in  other 
labors  of  a  worthy  kind,  if  he  was  a  monk  of  the  better 
sort,  or  to  lead  an  idle  and  dissolute  life,  if  he  proved 
to  be  such  a  monk  as  some  were  said  to  have  become. 
The  friar,^  on  the  contrary,  was  vowed  to  a  life  of  pov- 
erty and  of  humble  missionary  labor  among  the  poor  and 

^  Stubbs,  Constitutional  History  of  EngltDid,  vol.  ii.  p.  423. 

2  The  name  "  friar  "  is  a  corruption  of  the  French /)v;".i?,  brother. 


198  THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM. 

wretched  of  the  world.  He  was  to  shelter  himself  under 
no  roof  of  his  own  ;  he  was  to  trust  to  charity  for  his 
daily  bread. 

The  oldest  order  of  the  mendicant  brothers  was 
founded  in  12 10,  by  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  who  looked 
upon  wealth  as  literally  the  root  of  all  evil,  and  its  renun- 
ciation as  the  first  duty  of  one  who  would  do  the  work 
of  Christ.  He  called  his  followers  fratres  minores,  the 
Francis-  Icsscr  brethren,  to  indicate  their  humbleness  as 
cans.  ^  fraternity,  taking  the  lowest  place.      From 

this  they  were  sometimes  known  as  Minorites,  but  more 
commonly  as  Franciscans,  from  their  founder,  or  as  Grey 
Friars,  from  their  garb.  A  second  mendicant  order,  that 
of  the  Dominicans,  or  Black  Friars,  devoted  to  preaching 
Domini-  rather  than  to  charitable  labors,  but  equally 
cans.  vowed  to  povcrty,  was  founded  by  St.  Dominic 

at  nearly  the  same  time.  The  Carmelites,  or  White 
Friars,  were  a  third  order,  which  arose  in  the  east. 

The  Dominicans  were  the  first  to  enter  England,  which 
they  did  in  1220.  Two  years  later,  the  first  Franciscans 
came.  The  latter  won  the  hearts  of  the  common  people 
in  an  extraordinary  way,  by  their  self-sacrificing  labors 
among  the  sick,  the  sorrowful,  the  sinful,  and  the  poor. 
At  the  same  time  they  commanded  the  esteem  of  the 
highest  in  church  and  state  and  in  the  schools.  Simon 
de  Montfort  was  in  close  friendship  with  one  of  the 
Franciscan  brothers ;  Bishop  Grosseteste,  the  best  of 
the  English  prelates  of  that  time,  gave  them  hearty  sup- 
port ;  Roger  Bacon,  the  most  learned  man  of  his  age, 
joined  their  ranks.  For  some  years  they  exerted  a  pow- 
erful influence  in  England  for  good.  Then  the  Christ- 
like  spirit  that  St.  Francis  had  infused  into  the  order  was 
spent.  The  friars  accepted  gifts  of  houses  and  lands, 
to  be  owned  in  other  names,  and  thus  they  enjoyed  the 


MEDIAEVAL   LIFE    IN    ENGLAND.  199 

use  of  wealth  which  they  pretended  not  to  possess.  So 
they  fell  into  disrepute.  In  the  fourteenth  century,  they 
were  more  scorned  and  disliked  than  the  monks. 

96.  Sports  and  Pastimes.  Hunting  and  hawking 
were  the  favorite  sports  of  the  noble  class,  but  denied 
to  the  common  people.  The  latter,  then  as  now,  were 
much  given  to  athletic  pastimes,  —  wrestling,  boxing, 
leaping,  running,  and  field  games  of  various  kinds.  All 
classes  were  fond  of  the  dance,  which  seems  to  have 
been  practised  much  less  within  doors  than  in  the  open 
air.  Games  of  chess,  draughts,  and  dicing  were  among 
the  early  indoor  amusements,  and  playing-cards  were 
introduced  at  some  time  during  the  fourteenth  century. 

There  was  always  delight  in  music  among  the  Eng- 
lish people,  and  various  instruments  were  played  ;  but, 
undoubtedly,  there  was  much  simplicity  in  the  musical 
art.  Church  organs,  of  not  many  pipes  and  stops,  were 
an  early  invention ;  the  harp  and  the  rote, 
which  was  a  smaller  kind  of  harp  ;  the  viol  and 
the  gigue,  primitive  forms  of  the  violin  ;  the  lute,  which 
took  in  later  times  the  better  form  of  the  guitar  ;  the 
tabor  and  the  drum  ;  the  bagpipe,  the  flageolet,  and  the 
horn,  —  were  among  the  sources  of  music  in  mediaeval 
times. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

91.  Norman  Influence  on  English  Civilization. 
Topics. 

1.  Social  state  of  Norman  invaders. 

2.  Social  state  of  English. 

3.  Attitude  of  the  two  races  toward  each  other. 
References.  —  Bright,  i.  36-38;  Green,  90-93;  Guest,  134,  135; 

Freeman,  S.  H.  N.  C,  ch.  xiv. ;  Johnson,  N.  E.,  I5r-i73. 


1 


200  MEDIEVAL   LIFE    IN    ENGLAND. 

92.  Mediaeval  Habitations. 

Topics. 

1.  Dwellings  of  the  lords:  a,  the  castle;  b,  the  castle  hall;  c, 

manor-houses  ;  d^  house  furnishings. 

2.  Dwellings  of  the  peasantry. 

3.  Dwellings  of  the  townsmen. 

References.  —  Bright,  i.  263;  Guest,  144;  Gibbins,  19;  Traill,  i. 
381,  382. 

93.  Food  and  Drink. 

Topics. 

1.  Lack  of  variety, 

2.  Meats,  garden  products,  fruits,  etc. 

3.  Beverages. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  7S-77 '1  Bright,  i.  264;  Gibbins,  44, 
45  ;  Guest,  89,  90,  166,  228,  239,  288,  289;  Rogers,  59-63,  77-86; 
Traill,  i.  225,  226,  475-478,  ii.  118,  119,  432-438. 

94.  Travel  and  Vagrancy. 
Topics. 

1.  Conditions  of  travel. 

2.  Movements  of  lords  and  otherSo 

3.  Wandering  population. 

4.  Hospitality. 

5.  Royal  journeys. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  272-277:  Rogers,  133-138;  Traill,  i. 
489. 

95.  Monks  and  Friars. 
Topics. 

1.  Difference  between  monks  and  friars. 

2.  The  Franciscan  friars. 

3.  The  Dominican  friars. 

References.  —  Gardiner,!.  190-192;  Green,  147-152:  Guest,  211- 
213,  280-282;  Gibbins,  75,  jG;  Rogers,  163,  248-251. 

96.  Sports  and  Pastimes. 

Topics. 

1.  Amusements  :  a,  of  the  nobles  ;  b,  of  the  people. 

2.  Music  and  musical  instruments. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.    201 

LINEAGE    OF    THE    LATER    PLANTAGENET    KINGS    OF 

ENGLAND. 


Henry  III., 

1216-1272, 

married 

Eleanor 

pf  Provence. 


Edward  I.,  f  Edward  TI. 

1272-1307,  I  1307-1327, 

married  \  married 

Eleanor  |  Isabella 

0/  Castile.  \  of  Fra7ice. 


{  Edward  TIL, 

I       1327-1377, 
married 
Philippa 
of  Hamatdi. 


Edmund, 

Earl 

of  Lancaster. 


Henry, 
I  Earl 

of  Lancaster. 


Henry, 

Duke 

of  Lancaster. 


Edward, 

{The 

Black  Prince),  ( 

died  1376,       ( 

married 

Joan  of  Kent. 

Lionel, 

Duke 

of  Clarence, 

died  13^)8, 

married 

Elizabeth 

de  Burgh. 

John  of  Gaunt,  f 

died  1399,       I 

married        \ 

I.  Blanche       | 

of  Lancaster ;  [ 

2.  Constance 
of  Castile  ; 

3.  Catherine 
Swynford.      ' 


Edmund, 

Diikc  of  York,  - 

died  1402 


Thomas, 

Dnke 

of  Gloucester, 

died  1397. 

Blanche, 
I        married 
John  of  Gaunt. 
(See  above.) 


I 


Richard  II., 

1377-1399- 


Philippa, 
married 
Edmund 

Mortimer, 
Earl 

of  J\  larch. 


Henry, 

Djike 

of  Lancaster, 

afterwards 

Henry  IV. 

John 

Beaufort, 

Earl 

of  Somerset. 

Cardinal 
Beaufort. 

Richard, 

Earl  of 

Cambridge, 

beheaded 

1415- 


SURVEY   OF   GENERAL    HISTORY. 

THE    FIFTEENTH    CENTURY. 

The  fifteenth  century  is  marked  above  most  others  by 
two  occurrences  that  rank  among  the  few  supreme  events  in 
human  history.  They  are  the  invention  of  printing  and  the 
beginning  of  a  true  geographical  knowledge  of  the  world. 

The  l7ivcntio7i  of  Printiiig.  The  first  known  impression  of 
printed  words  from  movable  type  was  made  at  Mayence,  in 
1454  ;  in  1455,  the  first  Bible  was  printed  :  in  1467,  the  print- 
ing-press was  working  at  Rome ;  in  1469,  at  Venice  ;  in  1470, 
at  Paris;  in  1477,  at  London,  before  which  last-named  date 
it  was  busy  in  half  the  cities  of  Italy,  Germany,  the  Nether- 
lands, and  France.  Thus  quickly  did  the  new  art  spread  the' 
learning  and  thought  of  the  time,  to  fertilize  the  whole  Euro- 
pean mind. 

Geogt-aphical  Discovery.  The  geographical  discoveries  that 
soon  followed  were  probably  more  exciting  to  the  interest  and 
imagination  of  mankind  than  any  others  that  ever  happened, 
before  or  since.  Through  all  the  later  half  of  the  century, 
Portuguese  exploration  down  the  long  west-African  coast, 
creeping  from  point  to  point,  seeking  the  extremity  of  the 
continent,  was  being  watched  with  vague  hopes.  Then  came 
(1492)  the  bold  voyage  of  Columbus  into  the  open  Atlantic, 
with  his  amazing  discovery  of  lands  supposed  to  belong  to 
the  Asiatic  side  of  the  world  ;  and  then,  again,  quickly  fol- 
lowing (1497),  the  final  success  of  the  Portuguese  Vasco  da 
Gama  in  rounding  the  African  continent,  whereby  the  India 
that  Columbus  sought  was  actually  reached.  For  commerce 
with  the  east  a  better  route  was  suddenly  opened  ;  for  ambi- 
tion  and   adventure    there    were    new,   mysterious,   enticing, 


THE    FIFTEENTH    CENTURY.  203 

boundless  fields  disclosed.  All  the  conceptions,  the  reason- 
ings, the  imaginings  of  men  were  expanded  by  the  vision  of 
a  wider  world  than  they  had  dreamed  of  before ;  and  all  the 
energies  of  their  nature  were  challenged  to  finish  the  quest 
they  had  begun. 

Birth  of  the  Mode?'n  E7'a.  Stimulations  so  prodigious  were 
never,  at  any  other  time,  brought  to  bear  on  all  sides  of  human 
spirit  and  faculty  at  once  ;  and  though  their  visibly  revolution- 
ary effects  were  wrought  in  the  next  century,  it  is  on  the  face 
of  the  fifteenth  that  they  mark  the  ending  of  Mediaeval  and 
the  beginning  of  Modern  life,  —  the  Renaissance,  or  new  birth 
of  the  European  world. 

Revival  of  Classic  Learni?ig.  The  printing-press  gave  power- 
ful effects  to  another  event,  which  occurred  at  the  moment  of 
its  invention.  This  was  the  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the 
Turks  (1453),  which  sent  great  numbers  of  Greek  scholars  in 
flight  to  western  Europe,  to  become  teachers  of  the  language 
and  literature  of  ancient  Greece,  and  to  bring  precious  man- 
uscripts, which  the  press  began  instantly  to  copy  for  eager 
students  far  and  wide.  This  opened  a  new  world  of  ideas, 
and  gave  learning  a  new  range. 

Italy.  Italy  was  better  prepared  than  other  countries  for 
the  finer  stimulations  of  the  time,  and  all  culture  was  aston- 
ishingly ripened  there  ;  but  the  Italian  genius  found  expres- 
sion less  in  Letters  than  in  Art.  Painting  and  sculpture  were 
raised  to  nearly  their  most  inspired  height  before  the  century 
closed.  Art  flourished,  learning  gained,  wealth  increased,  life 
was  in  many  ways  refined,  but  liberty  was  gone  from  the  land. 
Princely  patrons  had  risen,  who  gave  munificent  encourage- 
ment to  the  scholar  and  the  artist,  but  they  had  risen  on  the 
ruined  republican  freedom  of  former  days.  Even  democratic 
Florence  had  sunk  under  the  rule  of  a  great  family,  the  famous 
Medicis,  princeliest  in  patronage  of  all ;  and  the  Medicean 
splendors  that  fill  the  city  are  a  poor  indemnity  for  the  Flor- 
entine free  spirit  that  died  at  their  feet. 

The  Revelatioti  of  Italian   Culture  to  the  North.     Towards 

\ 


204  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

the  end  of  the  century,  a  king  of  France  (Charles  A^III.), 
lured  into  a  ceaseless  war  that  went  on  in  southern  Italy, 
over  the  Neapolitan  kingdom,  crossed  the  Alps  with  an  army 
which  he  led  like  a  conqueror  to  Naples,  through  Florence 
and  Rome.  He  gained  no  footing  in  the  peninsula,  and  soon 
retreated  with  heavy  loss  ;  but  his  army  carried  loads  of  artis- 
tic plunder  back  to  France,  with  a  knowledge  of  the  Italian 
refinements  of  life  which  is  thought  to  have  had  a  great  influ- 
ence upon  civilization  beyond  the  Alps.  Michelet,  the  French 
historian,  calls  this  expedition  a  revelation  of  Italy  to  the 
nations  of  the  north. 

France.  France  had  then  become  a  quite  solidified  monar- 
chical state.  It  had  been,  in  the  first  half  of  the  century, 
more  than  ever  broken  down  by  a  wicked  renewal  of  English 
attacks  (as  told  in  chapter  X.),  but  had  recovered  with  amaz- 
ing vital  strength.  Fortune  gave  it  a  crafty  king  (Louis  XL), 
who  undermined,  rather  than  broke,  the  dangerous  power 
of  dukes  and  counts,  and  who  set  the  French  monarchy  on 
the  way  to  absolutism,  which  it  reached  very  soon.  He  did 
this,  moreover,  at  a  time  when  one  of  the  ducal  families  of 
France  —  the  Burgundian  —  had  grown  to  a  strength  and 
influence  in  Europe  that  far  exceeded  his  own. 

The  Bnrgiiiidia7i  Doininion.  The  ducal  house  of  Burgundy, 
branching  in  the  last  century  from  the  royal  family  of  France, 
had  married  so  shrewdly,  and  grasped  inheritances  with  such 
success,  that  its  original  French  domain  was  the  least  part  of 
the  great  territory  that  it  ruled.  One  by  one  the  rich  counties 
of  the  Netherlands,  both  Flemish  and  Dutch,  had  fallen  into 
its  hands,  along  with  many  rich  provinces  besides.  The  Duke 
of  Burgundy  with  whom  Louis  XL  contended,  known  in  his- 
tory as  Charles  the  Bold,  was  the  wealthiest  prince  of  his 
time,  and  might  easily,  with  wisdom,  have  wielded  the  great- 
est power.  But  Louis  involved  him  in  a  war  with  the  Swiss 
which  cost  him  his  life.  Then  the  crafty  king  found  it  easy  to 
take  most  of  her  French  fiefs  from  Duchess  Mary,  the  duke's 
daughter  and  heir. 


THE    FIFTEENTH    CENTURY.  205 

The  Netherlands,  which  remained  to  the  Duchess  Mary, 
were  a  splendid  inheritance  in  themselves.  ])y  her  marriage 
to  Maximilian  of  Austria  (son  of  the  then  emperor,  Frederick 
III.),  and  by  the  subsequent  marriage  of  her  son  Philip  to  a 
Spanish  princess,  the  hapless  people  of  those  thriving  pro- 
vinces were  cruelly  dragged  into  tlie  clutches  of  an  Aus- 
trian-Spanish power,  which  became  in  the  next  century  the 
deadliest  despotism  in  the  world. 

Spain.  In  1469,  by  marriage  of  Ferdinand,  King  of  Aragon, 
and  Isabella,  Queen  of  Castile,  the  Spanish  monarchy  was 
practically  formed.  Twenty-three  years  later,  the  last  Moor- 
ish city  and  petty  kingdom  in  Spain  was  surrendered  to  the 
wedded  sovereigns,  and  their  rule  was  undisputed  from  the 
Pyrenees  to  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  In  that  same  year 
(1492),  the  long  quest  of  Columbus  for  a  patron  who  would 
help  him  to  the  discovery  of  new  worlds  beyond  the  untrav- 
ersed  ocean  was  ended,  and  Queen  Isabella,  by  her  faith, 
won  the  great  Spanish- American  realm.  Then  (1496)  came 
young  Archduke  Philip,  with  his  Burgundian  inheritance  of 
the  Netherlands,  with  his  Austrian  heirship,  with  his  imperial 
lineage,  and  his  family  lien  on  the  German  imperial  crown, 
to  wed  the  daughter  of  Isabella  and  Perdinand,  and  to  bring 
that  whole  vast  assemblage  of  Spanish,  Austrian,  and  Burgun- 
dian dominions,  in  Europe  and  America,  under  the  sceptre 
of  his  son  (Charles  V.). 

Germany.  The  elective  kingship  of  Germany,  and  the  im- 
perial title  joined  to  it,  returned  in  1437  ^^  the  House  of 
Austria,  never  to  be  taken  from  its  princes  again.  But  the 
emperor  was  almost  the  poorest  of  the  sovereigns  of  Europe 
and  the  least  to  be  feared.  The  empire  was  still  a  shadow 
cast  on  Germany  with  blighting  effects.  That  country  made 
no  political  advance  ;  but  the  intellectual  hunger  of  the  time 
was  manifested  nowhere,  beyond  Italy,  more  than  among  the 
German  people.  They  invented  the  printed  book,  and  great 
numbers  in  every  class  were  learning  to  read  it  ;  they  were 
founding  universities ;  they  were  cultivating  the  arts ;  but 
literature,  in  the  finer  sense,  was  still  at  a  declining  stage. 


2o6  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

Other  Coimtries.  The  confederacy  of  the  Swiss  cantons 
was  enlarged  in  this  century,  and  fought  successfully  with 
the  Austrian  and  Burgundian  dukes.  Hungary  waged  a  long, 
desperate  war  with  the  Turks.  Poland  was  rising  in  impor- 
tance as  a  kingdom.  The  Muscovite  principality,  out  of  which 
the  Russian  empire  was  to  grow,  broke  the  yoke  of  the  Tar- 
tars and  began  to  extend  its  power.  The  Scandinavian  king- 
doms of  the  north  were  in  an  unsettled  state. 

The  Church.  Early  in  the  century  the  Great  Schism  in  the 
church  was  brought  to  an  end  by  a  general  council  at  Con- 
stance, which  deposed  the  rival  popes  and  elected  one  whose 
title  was  acknowledged  by  all.  The  new  pope  and  several  of 
his  successors  were  men  of  high  character,  and  the  papacy 
was  restored  for  a  time  to  respect.  But  in  the  later  half  of 
the  century  a  series  of  papal  elections,  controlled  by  bribery 
and  fraud,  raised  men  of  infamous  wickedness  to  the  head- 
ship of  the  Christian  church.  Alexander  VI.,  the  Borgia  of 
detested  memory,  was  one  of  these,  and  only  worse  by  a  few 
degrees  than  some  who  went  before  him  and  some  who  came 
after.  Their  scandalous  government  of  Christendom  was  one 
of  the  prime  causes  of  the  great  movement  of  religious  revo- 
lution in  the  next  century  which  is  known  as  The  Reformation. 

But  lesser  revolts  had  occurred  long  before.  Wiclif's  teach- 
ing in  England,  conveyed  to  Bohemia  by  the  queen  of  the 
English  King  Richard  II.,  raised  up  the  Bohemian  reformers, 
Hus  and  Jerome.  Both  were  condemned  for  heresy  by  the 
Council  of  Constance  and  burned  at  the  stake ;  but  their 
death  only  fired  the  spirit  of  revolt  among  their  countrymen, 
and  Bohemia,  for  half  a  century,  was  the  scene  of  frightful 
religious  wars.  In  the  last  decade  of  the  century,  the  city 
of  Florence  was  stirred  to  its  depths  by  the  fervid  preaching 
of  the  monk  Savonarola,  who  denounced  the  corruptions  in 
the  church,  and  brought  about  a  very  strange  revolution,  half 
religious,  half  political ;  but  he,  too,  was  burned.  For  the 
stifling  of  such  movements,  the  terrible  enginery  of  the  In- 
quisition was  revived  in  Spain. 


CHAPTER   X. 

PARLIAMENTARY    KINGS. 

Lancastrian  Kings  :  Henry    IV.  —  Henry    V.  —  Henry 

VI.     1399-1450. 

97.  The  Disputed  Title  of  Henry  IV.  Feudal  ideas 
of  hereditary  right  had  so  far  gained  force  in  England 
that  the  parliamentary  election  which  made  Henry  of 
Lancaster  king  did  not  give  him  an  undisputed  title  to 
the  crown.  By  the  rules  of  inheritance  it  would  have 
gone  to  another.  After  Richard,  he  was  not  the  next  in 
descent  from  Edward  III.  ;  for  his  father,  John  of  Gaunt, 
had  an  elder  brother,  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  who 
died  early,  but  who  left  a  daughter,  married  to  Edmund 
Mortimer,  Earl  of  March,  whose  grandson,  of  the  same 
name  and  title,  had  been  recognized  by  Richard  II.  as 
his  heir.  So  distinct  a  denial  of  hereditary  right  as  was 
given  in  the  coronation  of  Henry  was  certain  to  be  con- 
tested, and  circumstances  prolonged  the  contest  through 
almost  a  hundred  years,  producing  a  dismal  period  of 
civil  war. 

Reigning  by  act  of  Parliament,  Henry  IV.  was  neces- 
sarily a  constitutional  king.  It  was  the  good-will  of 
Parliament,  representing  at  least  a  passive  willingness 
in  the  nation,  that  upheld  him  on  the  throne  against 
repeated  rebellions  and  conspiracies  among  the  greater 
lords.  Their  first  plot,  discovered  early  in  1400,  was 
crushed  by  popular  action  and  its  leaders  slain,  without 
need  of  any  measures  by  the  king.     Soon  afterwards,  the 


208 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1400-1403 


deposed  King  Richard  died  mysteriously  in  his  prison  at 
Death  of  Pomfret.  A  report  was  given  out  that  he  had 
Richard  II.  sta^-ygj  himsclf  ;  but  suspicions  of  murder  were 
rife,  though  Henry  made  a  solemn  declaration  that  he 
was  innocent  of  Richard's  death. 

98.  Rebellion    and    War.       More    troublesome    than 
these  suspicions  of  murder  was  a  story  that  Richard  was 

not  dead,  but  had  es- 
caped and  was  in  Scot- 
land, where  some  one 
resembling  him  was  ac- 
tually kept  at  court,  as 
a  pretender  to  the  Eng- 
lish throne.  The  Welsh 
were  more  hostile  still. 
Under  Owen  Glendow- 
er,  a  descendant  from 
Llywelyn,  the 

Glendower. 

last  native 
Prince  of  Wales,,  they 
rose  in  1402  and  began 
attacks  on  the  English 
borderland. 

While  Henry  was  en- 
gaged with  the  Welsh, 
the  Scots  invaded  Northumberland,  but  were  met  by  the 
Earl  of  Northumberland  and  his  fiery  son,  Henry  Percy, 
called  Hotspur,  who  defeated  them  at  Homil- 
don  Hill.  The  Percies  had  been  the  most  pow- 
erful of  Henry's  partisans  ;  but  something  occurred  at 
this  time  which  touched  their  haughty  temper,  causing 
a  quarrel  and  a  rebellion,  in  which  the  formidable  family 
and  its  connections  were  leagued  with  Glendower  and  the 
Scots.     Henry  faced  the  crisis  with   great  energy  and 


HENRY    IV. 


Hotspur. 


1370-1423]  PARLIAMENTARY    KINGS.  209 

received  hearty  support.     The  rebels  were  defeated  at 
Shrewsbury  (July,  1403)  and  Hotspur  was  slain. 

The  Welsh  continued  to  be  troublesome,  and  Henry 
was    not    fortunate  in    his    undertakings    against    them. 
They   received  aid   from  France,   where  great    disorder 
prevailed.       The   truce    made    by   Richard   II. 
had  been  broken  ;  the  kingdom  was  beincr  torn  tions  in 
by  the  contests  of  the  two  factions,  Burgundian 
and  Armagnac,  that  contended  for  jDower  ;  Henry  med- 
dled in  their  conflicts,  but  seems  to  have  had  no  fixed 
policy  or  aim. 

99.  Origin  of  the  Stuart  Family  in  Scotland. 
When  Scotland  was  last  mentioned  in  this  history  its 
king  was  David  II.,  son  of  the  national  hero,  Robert 
Bruce.  David  died  in  1370,  leaving  no  offspring.  His 
sister,  Margaret,  had  married  the  High  Steward  of  Scot- 
land, whose  family  name  was  Allan,  or  Fitz  Allan,  but 
who  was  called  in  common  speech  Robert  Stewart,  or 
Stuart,  in  allusion  to  his  office,  until  that  came  to  be  the 
surname  accepted  by  his  house.  The  son  of  this  Robert 
Stuart  and  Margaret  Bruce  became  king  when  David 
Bruce  died,  beginning  the  line  of  Stuart  kings  and 
queens,  who  played  a  long  and  notable  part  in  Scottish 
and  English  history.  The  second  of  the  Stuart  dynasty, 
Robert  III.,  reigned  in  Scotland  when  Henry  IV.  came  to 
the  English  throne.  In  1405,  his  young  son  and  heir 
was  being  sent  for  education  to  France,  when  the  vessel 
that  bore  him  was  captured  by  an  English  ship,  captivity 
The  father  died  the  next  year,  and  the  cap-  of  James  i. 
tive  prince  was  recognized  as  king  (James  L),  though 
held  until  1423  as  a  hostage  at  the  English  court.  His 
uncle,  the  Duke  of  Albany,  governed  Scotland  as  regent 
meantime,  and  was  not  anxious  for  his  release. 

100.  Persecution  of  the  Lollards.     The  Lollards  had 


210  THE    DECLINE   OF    FEUDALISM.       [1401-1406 

been  in  favor  at  the  court  of  Richard  II.  His  queen, 
Anne  of  Bohemia,  and  some  men  of  high  influence  in 
the  late  reign,  were  counted  among  them,  and  evidently 
they  were  suspected  of  being,  as  a  body,  unfriendly  to 
the  new  king.  How  far  they  gave  him  reason  to  fear 
them,  by  any  disloyal  movements,  is  not  known  ;  but  it 
is  clear  that  j^olitical  feeling  made  him  ready  to  listen  to 
demands  for  their  persecution  from  the  church.  So  it 
happens  that  Henry  IV.,  who  was  neither  a  bigoted  nor 
a   cruel    man,   has   the  dreadful   distinction   of 

First  burn-    ,      .  ,         ^  i  •      n       r-  r  i 

ingatthe  bcmg  the  first  to  kmdle  fires  01  martyrdom  on 
English  soil.  They  were  lighted,  in  1401,  by  a 
special  order  of  king  and  council  for  the  burning  of  one 
William  Sawtre,  a  Wiclifite  priest.  Soon  afterwards,  the 
first  English  statute  for  the  "burning  of  heretics"  was 
enacted  in  Parliament  ;  but  there  seems  to  have  been 
little  zeal  in  carrying  it  out. 

101.  The  Strengthening  of  Parliament.  Henry  IV., 
says  Bishop  Stubbs,  "  governed  by  the  help  of  his  Parlia- 
ment, with  the  executive  aid  of  a  council  over  which 
Parliament  both  claimed  and  exercised  control.  Never 
before  and  never  again  for  more  than  two  hundred  years 
were  the  Commons  as  strong  as  they  were  under  Henry 
IV."  ^  More  successfully  than  in  any  previous  reign,  the 
Commons  asserted  their  right  to  originate  all  acts  impos- 
ing taxes,  and  to  make  the  granting  of  supplies  to  the 
king  dependent  on  the  satisfying  of  their  complaints  and 
claims.  They  guarded  the  official  enrolment  of  their 
acts  against  such  tampering  with  the  language  as  seems 
to  have  been  possible  before.  They  established  their 
right  to  control  the  election  of  members  of  their  House, 
and  they  made  the  election  so  democratic  that  every 
freeman  who  would  take  the  trouble  to  be  present  at  the 
1  Stubbs,  Constitutional  Hist,  of  Eng.^  ch.  xviii. 


1406-1411]  PARLIAMENTARY    KINGS.  211 

county  court  when  knights  of  the  shire  were  chosen  had 
a  vote.  They  took  the  first  effective  steps  towards  in- 
suring to  members  of  Parliament  the  freedom  of  speech 
and  freedom  from  arrest  that  are  the  most  important  of 
the  "  privileges  "  on  which  parliamentary  independence 
depends.  In  1406,  they  presented  to  the  king  a  petition 
of  thirty-one  articles,  embodying  the  most  thorough  and 
well-defined  scheme  of  constitutional  government  that 
had  yet  been  set  forth.  Its  ready  and  complete  accept- 
ance by  the  king  marks  the  new  character  of  his  reign. 

102.  The  Prince  of  Wales.  In  his  last  years,  King 
Henry  was  afflicted  with  some  dreadful  disease,  which 
often  disabled  him,  and  which  appears  to  have  thrown 
unusual  duties  on  his  eldest  son  and  namesake,  Henry, 
Prince  of  Wales.  The  prince  was  but  eighteen  or  nine- 
teen years  old  when  he  was  called  to  a  seat  in  the  Privy 
Council.  A  little  later,  he  was  practically  for  two  years 
the  head  of  the  government.  At  that  period,  it  cannot 
be  believed  that  he  was  the  dissolute  and  reckless  youth 
which  tradition  represented,  and  which  Shakespeare  has 
depicted  in  his  "  King  Henry  Fourth."  Some  The  Prince 
ground  he  must  have  given,  perhaps  at  an  s^ake- 
earlier  time,  for  stories  of  wild  behavior  ;  but  speare. 
the  historian  who  has  studied  the  records  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  IV.  most  minutely  concludes  that  "  the  legends 
of  his  cut-pursing  "  and  *'  other  such  thievish  living  on 
the  common  road,"  with  companions  like  Shakespeare's 
Falstaff,  "are  late  literary  embellishments."  ^  They  are 
made  improbable  by  his  after  hfe,  in  which  no  sign  of  a 
vicious  character  appears. 

In    141 1,    two  years  before   the   king's    death,    some 
cause  of  estrangement  arose  between  him  and  the  prince, 
and  the  latter  left  the  council.     The  next  year  they  were 
1  Wylie,  Hist,  of  Eng.  under  Henry  IV.,  ch.  xciv. 


212 


THE    DECLINE   OF    FEUDALISM. 


[1413 


reconciled,  the  father  being  then  very  ill  and  near  to 
death.  Early  in  141 3,  the  suffering  king  died,  and  his 
son  succeeded  him,  quite  evidently  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  kingdom. 

103.  The  Character  of  Henry  V.  Immediately  on 
coming  to  the  throne,  the  young  king  showed  a  generous 
character  by  setting  free  the  Earl  of  March,  true  heir 
to  the  crown,  as  many  believed,  whom  his  more  jealous 

father  had  kept  in  confinement 
throughout  the  late  reign. 
A  little  later  he  restored  to 
the  heir  of  the  Percies  his 
title  and  estates.  These  acts, 
significant  of  a  high,  cour- 
ageous, self-confident  spirit, 
betokened,  too,  the  kind  of 
mediaeval  magnanimity  that  he 
possessed,  which  was  purely 
chivalric,  like  that  of  the  Black 
Prince,  and  which  took  little 
account  of  the  sufferings  of 
common  people.  He  was  en- 
tirely a  hero  of  the  type  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  untouched  by  the  modern  spirit  then 
beginning  to  make  itself  felt.  He  presents  a  striking 
figure,  a  brilliant  personality,  in  English  history,  but  not 
to  be  ranked,  as  some  would  place  him,  among  its  greater 
men.  His  ambition  was  as  empty  of  wisdom  and  true 
patriotism  as  that  of  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion,  and  more 
so  than  that  of  Edward  HL,  whose  foolish  pretensions 
he  revived. 

At  the  outset  of  his  reigu,  Henry  showed  hostility  to 
the  Lollards,  and  ere  long  they  were  accused  of  having 
formed  rebellious  plans.      He  took  measures  with  char- 


HENRY    V. 


1413-1415]  PARLIAMENTARY   KINGS.  213 

acteristic  vigor,  attacking  a  crowd  assembled  in  the  fields 
at  St.  Giles's  Church,  killing  some,  taking  some  Renewed 
prisoners,  and  bringing  a  number  afterwards  to  Jionof" 
the  gallows  and  the  stake.     That  there  was  a  ^ouards. 
really  treasonable  movement,  needing  so  much  severity, 
is  open  to  doubt.     A  fresh  statute  against  the  Lollards 
was  procured  from  Parliament,  their  writings  were  sup- 
pressed, and  they  soon  ceased  to  be  known  as  an  acknow- 
ledged party  or  sect. 

104.  The  New  Atterapt  against  France.  But  one 
ambition  showed  itself  in  Henry's  mind  after  he  became 
king,  and  that  was  to  revive  and  make  good  the  wicked 
and  foolish  claim  to  the  French  crown  which  his  great- 
grandfather, Edward  III.,  had  set  up.  As  soon  as  pos- 
sible he  prepared  for  this.  If  the  project  was  barbar- 
ously wrong,  he  alone  was  not  responsible  for  it.  Plainly 
he  was  encouraged  to  it  by  English  national  feeling,  and 
the  momentary,  empty,  misery-making  success  he  ob- 
tained gave  him  the  most  rapturous  affection  that  the 
.English  people  have  ever  bestowed  on  one  of  their  kings. 

The  deplorable  condition  of  France  seemed  to  make 
that  kingdom  an  easy  prey.     In  the  fury  of  its  The  state 
factions    all    patriotism    was    being    consumed.  o^F^'a.nce. 
Armagnacs  and  Burgundians  were  equally  ready  to  ally 
themselves  with  their  country's  foe. 

The  army  of  30,000  men  with  which  Henry  entered 
France,  in  August,  141 5,  was  remarkably  well  organ- 
ized and  equipped,  even  a  medical  and  surgical  staff 
being  brought  into  service  for  the  first  time.  Yet  it 
came  near  to  being  wrecked  by  disease  at  the  beginning 
of  its  campaign.  Five  weeks  were  spent  in  the  siege 
and  capture  of  Harfleur,  near  the  mouth  of  the 

f-    •  r    1  Harfleur. 

Seme,  and  so  large  a  part  of  the  army  was  dead 

or  disabled  when  the  town  surrendered  that  nothing  fur- 


214  THE   DECLINE   OF   FEUDALISM.  [1415 

ther  could  be  undertaken  ;  yet  the  king  set  out  on  a 
useless  and  hazardous  long  march  to  the  English  strong- 
hold of  Calais.  The  French  had  gathered  forces  behind 
the  river  Somme,  to  prevent  his  crossing,  but  he  suc- 
ceeded, after  making  a  long  detour,  in  passing  the  stream. 

At  the  little  village  of  Agincourt,  or  Azincourt,  he 
found  the  enemy  in  his  front,  and  there,  on  the  25th  of 
October,  141 5,  he  won  another  of  the  victories  which, 
for  three  hundred  years,  were  the  Englishmen's  chief 
Battle  of  glory  and  pride.  His  army  was  outnumbered 
Agincourt.  ^y  ^^^^  j^gg  t\is_Y]  three  or  four  to  one,  and  prob- 
ably by  more  ;  but  again,  as  at  Crecy,  the  training  of  the 
citizen  was  put  on  trial  against  the  training  of  the  vassal, 
—  the  nationalized  spirit  against  the  feudalized,  —  and 
the  result  was  the  same.  The  French  had  learned 
nothing  since  they  met  the  English  before  ;  their  array 
was  as  clumsy,  their  bravery  as  much  wasted  in  planless 
fighting  as  ever.  The  compact,  well-disciplined  body  of 
the  English,  mostly  archers,  with  their  terrible  bows, 
was  placed  and  handled,  no  doubt,  with  admirable  skill ; 
but  the  astounding  slaughter  of  probably  10,000  on  the 
side  of  the  French,  including  the  flower  of  their  chivalry, 
and  princes  and  nobles  in  great  number,  against  the  loss 
of  a  few  hundred  of  the  English,  was  due  in  great  mea- 
sure to  a  muddy  clay  on  the  battle-ground,  in  which  the 
French  horsemen  could  scarcely  move. 

Agincourt  ended  the  opposition  to  Henry's  march  ;  it 
made  mourning  and  discouragement  in  France  ;  it  elated 
the  English  beyond  measure ;  but  it  accomplished  no 
more.  Henry  returned  from  Calais  to  London,  to  be 
received  with  wild  joy,  and  to  be  the  most  popular  of 
kings. 

105.  Henry's  Triumphs  and  his  Death.  Nearly  two 
years  passed  before  Henry  made  further  attempts  at  the 


1417-1420]  PARLIAMENTARY    KINGS.  21 5 

conquest  of  France.  Its  factions,  meantime,  were  doing 
what  they  could  to  make  his  task  easy.  In  August, 
14 1 7,  he  sailed  again  from  Southampton,  with  a  fine 
army,  more  than  25,000  strong,  and  landed  again  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Seine.  Armagnacs  and  Burgundians 
were  busy  at  war  with  each  other  and  allowed  him  to 
advance.  He  found  no  resistance  except  at  the  forti- 
fied towns,  which  he  besieged  in  turn.  Caen  was  de- 
fended stoutly,  but  he  carried  it  by  storm.  Before  the 
end  of  the  year  a  great  part  of  Normandy  was  submis- 
sive to  him  and  had  been  parcelled  out  among  English 
lords.  The  next  May  he  proceeded  against  the  great 
and  strong  city  of  Rouen,  and  starved  it  into  siege  of 
surrender,  after  a  siege  which  lasted  until  Jan-  ^°^^^- 
uary,  14 19.  To  save  their  food,  the  garrison  thrust 
12,000  old  men,  women,  and  children  outside  of  the 
town  ;  Henry  would  not  let  them  pass  through  his  lines, 
and  they  slowly  perished  under  the  walls.  Such  was  the 
barbarity  of  mediaeval  war. 

Attempts,  after  Rouen  fell,  to  make  peace  between 
the  French  factions  resulted  in  a  treacherous  assassina- 
tion of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  causing  fiercer  hatreds 
than  before.  The  duke's  son  and  successor  then  alhed 
himself  and  his  party  with  the  English,  and  they  jointly 
made  war  on  the  French  king's  son  and  heir  (called  the 
dauphin),  who  now  headed  the  opposite  party.  Tj^e 
By  the  action  of  the  Buke  of  Burgundy  and  the  dauphin, 
death  of  the  Duke  of  Armagnac,  the  dauphin  became 
really  a  national  leader,  his  following  no  longer  a  faction, 
his  cause  the  cause  of  France.  Such  patriotic  feeling  as 
survived  in  the  ruined  country  was  rallied  to  his  support ; 
but  he  was  only  a  boy,  and  there  was  nothing  inspiring 
in  his  character  as  he  grew  to  be  a  man. 

The  French  queen,    Isabel,   joined  Burgundy  in   the 


2l6  THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1420-1422 

English  alliance,  against  her  own  son,  the  dauphin,  and 
Treaty  of  ^^"^  May,  1420,  a  treaty  was  signed  at  Troyes 
Troyes.  which  gavc  her  daughter,  the  Princess  Catherine 
of  France,  in  marriage  to  King  Henry,  made  him  regent 
of  the  kingdom  during  King  Charles's  life,  and  pledged 
the  crown  of  France  to  him  on  the  latter' s  death.  The 
marriage  followed  immediately,  and,  after  some  months, 
the  king  returned  to  London  with  his  bride. 

In  Henry's  absence,  the  English  suffered  reverses  in 
France,  and  he  was  called  back  early  in  the  summer  of 
142 1.  During  the  year  that  followed,  he  pressed  the  siege 
of  cities  that  were  held  for  the  dauphin,  with  constant 
success,  until  the  north  of  France  was  under  his  control. 
In  May,  1422,  Queen  Catherine,  who  had  given  birth  to 
a  son  the  preceding  December,  joined  him  with  her 
child,  and  they  held  court  at  Paris.  The  king  was  ill  at 
this  time,  but  after  a  few  weeks  of  rest  he  resolutely  set 
out  to  return  to  the  army  and  resume  command.  Death 
Death  of  overtook  him  on  the  way,  and  he  expired  on  the 
Henry  V.  |g^g^  j^y  q£  August,  at  Vinccnncs,  leaving  an 
infant  son,  nine  months  old,  to  inherit  the  two  crowns 
which  he  claimed.  Before  Henry's  body  had  been  laid  at 
rest  in  Westminster  Abbey,  Charles  VI.  of  France  was 
dead,  and  Charles  VII.  (lately  the  dauphin)  was  fighting 
for  his  inheritance  with  little  energy  and  with  scanty 
support. 

106.  Henry  VI.  and  his  Unclls.  The  infant  kins;, 
Henry  VI.  of  England  and  Henry  II.  of  France,  as  his 
titles  ran,  destined  to  the  most  sorrowful  of  lives  and 
the  most  disastrous  of  reigns,  was  in  one  respect  more 
fortunate  than  Richard  II.,  for  he  had  an  uncle  who 
proved  as  faithful  to  him  as  a  father  could  be.  Had  both 
the  living  brothers  of  his  father  been  equally  true,  there 
might  have  been  a  happier  half-century  in  England,  if 


I422-I429] 


PARLIAMENTARY    KINGS. 


217 


not  in  France.     John,  Duke  of  Bedford,  the  elder  uncle 
of  the  vouns:  kin^r,  was  an  able   statesman,  a 

•  T  ir    1  Bedford 

capable  soldier,  and  an  honest,  unselfish  man.   and 
Humphrey,   Duke  of   Gloucester,  the   younger 
uncle,  had  more  showy  talents  and  more  popular  man- 
ners, with  a  selfish  nature  and  a  scheming  mind. 

The  Duke  of  Bedford  was  appointed  Protector  of  the 
English  kingdom  by 
Parliament  ;  but  he  re- 
mained in  France,  ruling 
half  that  realm  in  his 
nephew's  name,  and 
pushing  the  war  of  con- 
quest for  some  time  with 
success.  His  selfish  bro- 
ther, Gloucester,  who 
acted  for  him  in  Eng- 
land, opened  mischiev- 
ous quarrels,  with  Bishop 
Beaufort,  the  English 
chancellor,  on  one  side 
of  the  Channel,  and  with 
Bedford's  important  ally, 
the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  on  the  other ;  yet  the  protector, 
acting  wisely  and  well,  made  head  against  these  difficul- 
ties for  a  number  of  years. 

107.  The  Maid  of  Orleans.  But  in  1429  a  strange 
event  occurred,  which  suddenly  and  wonderfully  changed 
the  situation  in  France.  The  king,  Charles  VH.,  who 
led  an  idle  and  frivolous  life,  was  incapable  of  wakening 
any  hope  for  the  country  by  any  faith  in  himself.  Seem- 
ingly nothing  but  a  miracle,  or  belief  in  one,  could  rouse 
the  unhappy  nation  from  the  despairing  state  in  which  it 
was  sunk.     The  miracle  happened,  or  a  semblance  of  it 


JOHN,    DUKE   OF    BEDFORD. 


2l8 


THE    DECLINE   OF   FEUDALISM. 


[1429 


produced  miraculous  effects.  A  pure-minded  and  pious 
young  peasant  girl  of  Lorraine,  Jeanne  d'Arc,  called  Joan 
of  Arc  by  the  English,  and  known  in  history  as  the 
Maid  of  Orleans,  brooded  over  the  calamities  of  the  coun- 
try until  she  came  to  believe  that  God  had  commanded 
her  to  deliver  it.  Her  simple  and  earnest  faith  in  her 
own  mission  could  hardly  have  inspired  belief  in  others, 
or  led  her  to  a  successful  course,  if  the  modest  Maid  had 


SPAIN 


'%|g:^::;g4S^<J.^;gir.: 


^(^iierra'i^ 


efti^ 


FRENCH    TERRITORY    HELD    BY    THE    ENGLISH    WHEN    JOAN    OF   ARC 

APPEARED,    1429. 


not  been  gifted  with  a  wise  mind  as  well  as  with  a  beau- 
tiful spirit,  and  with  marvellous  courage  as  well  as  a  per- 
fect humbleness  of  trust  in  God.  Overcoming  all  obsta- 
cles, she  made  her  way  to  the  king,  and  he  was  persuaded 
to  send  her  with  an  army  to  the  relief  of  the  city  of 
Orleans,  which  the  English  had  besieged  for  months. 
Gently  and  sweetly,  but  as  one  to  whom  authority  had 


1429] 


PARLIAMENTARY   KINGS. 


219 


been  given,  she  bore  down  every  doubt  of  her  heavenly 
mission  by  the  confidence  with  which  she  took  command. 
The  rudest  soldiers  were  awed  and  mastered  by  the  won- 
derful girl.  She  reformed  their  conduct,  disci-  joanof  Arc 
plined  camp  and  garrison,  exiDclled  vicious  fol-  ^t  Orleans, 
lowers,  and  raised  enthusiasm  to  the  highest  pitch.  Clad  in 
armor,  she  led  assaults  upon  the  besieger's  lines,  and  took 
part  in  the  fighting  like  a  fearless  knight.  The  French 
revered  her  as  a  saint ;  the  English  feared  her  as  a  witch. 
Orleans  was  saved  and  the  saintly  Maid  had  delivered 

it.  Nothing  then  seemed  impossible. 
She  conducted  the  passive  king  to  the 
royal  city  of  Rheims,  in  the  far  north 
of  the  kingdom,  to  be  crowned  and 
anointed  there,  according  to  the  custom 
of  the  kings  of  France.    Towns  opened 

their  gates  ;  the  Eng- 
lish gave  way ;  the 
king's  path  to  his 
crown    was     cleared. 

When     she  crowning 
had  seen  it  of  the  king. 

placed  solemnly  on  his 
head  she  thought  her 
mission  ended,  and 
would  have  returned 
to  her  humble  home  ; 
but  the  king  and  his 
court  would  not  let 
her  go.  And  yet  they 
tired  of  following  her 
wise  advice.  She 
urcred  the  indolent 
to      march 


STATUE   OF  JOAN   OF   ARC. 


Charles 


220 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1430-1435 


quickly  and  straight  on  Paris,  but  he  would  not.  His 
generals  had  grown  jealous;  the  old  state  of  things  was 
coming  back.  Jeanne  did  what  she  could,  hampered  on 
all  sides ;  but  the  end  of  it  was  that  she  was  captured  by 
the  forces  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  with  no  effort  to 
save  her  on  the  part  of  her  friends,  and  was  sold  by  the 
duke  to  the  English.  This  happened  in  May,  1430. 
Persuaded  by  the  superstition  of  the  age  that  the  Maid 
had  been  an  agent  of  evil  powers,  the  English  had  her 
tried  as  a  witch.     She  was  accused  by  the  Uni- 

TVCfirtvi*- 

domofthe    vcrsitv  of  Paris,  condemned  by  her  indoles,  and 

Maid.  ,/      -  T  -.^  T  •  T 

cruelly  burned  at  Kouen.  It  is  the  one  great 
blot  on  the  otherwise  fair  fame  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford, 
that  he  permitted  this  foul  thing  to  be  done  ;  and  it  is 
the  shame,  far  more,  of  the  heartless  King  of  France, 
tlitat  he  made  no  attempt  to  save  the  martyred  Maid. 
108.    Expulsion  of  the  English   from  France.     The 

burning  of  Jeanne 
d'Arc  brought  no  re- 
covery of  success  to 
the  English  arms. 
Slowly  but  surely 
they  lost  ground  from 
year  to  year,  and  feel- 
ing turned  against 
the  war.  In  1435, 
Bedford  died,  and 
after  that  the  English 
situation    in    France 


MARGARET    OF    ANJOU,    FROM    AN    OLD    MS. 


grew 


rapidly  worse. 
The  Duke  of  Burgundy,  whose  dominions  had  been  en- 
larged, and  who  had  become  a  very  powerful  prince,  now 
leagued  himself  with  the  French  king.  When  Henry 
VI.   came  to   manhood,  gentle  in  nature,  weak  in  will, 


I435-I449]  PARLIAMENTARY    KINGS.  221 

religious  in  disposition,  he  longed  for  peace ;  but  he  was 
surrounded  by  counsellors  who  would  let  him  yield  no- 
thing that  the  English  held,  though  what  they  held  grew 
less  and  less.  In  1444,  however,  his  ministers  arranged 
a  truce,  and  a  marriage  of  the  young  king  to  a  French 
princess  of  important  rank,  Margaret  of  Anjou,  Margaret 
daughter  of  Rene,  Duke  of  Anjou,  who  bore  the  of  Anjou. 
empty  title  of  King  of  Sicily  and  Jerusalem.  The  mar- 
riage was  unpopular  and  had  no  effect  in  bringing  peace. 
War  was  renewed,  in  1449,  so  disastrously  to  the  English 
that  within  two  years  they  were  driven  from  every  foot 
of  French  soil,  except  their  stronghold  of  Calais.  Even 
their  old  possessions  in  Aquitaine  were  lost.  So  nothing 
had  been  gained  by  the  hundred  years  of  war,  which  a 
vain  ambition  besran  and  a  vainer  ambition  renewed. 

109.  Rising  Troubles  in  England.  While  losing  their 
conquests  in  France  the  English  were  preparing  troubles 
for  themselves  at  home.  As  long  as  Bedford  lived,  his 
influence  put  some  check  on  the  rivalries  that  rose 
among  the  chiefs  of  great  families,  when  the  sceptre  of 
nominal  sovereignty  had  passed  to  the  hand  of  a  helpless 
child,  growing  up  to  be  a  weak  and  incapable  man.  Of 
such  families  there  were  several  that  boasted  royal  blood 
and  were  very  near  to  the  throne.  The  descent  of  one 
among  them  was  more  royal,  in  the  hereditary  view,  than 
that  of  the  reigning  Lancastrian  house.  It  united  two 
lines  from  Edward  III.,  one  coming  from  his  second  son, 
the  Duke  of  Clarence  (whose  last  male  descendant  was 
that  Earl  of  March  whom  Henry  IV.  imprisoned  and 
Henry  V.  set  free  —  see  sections  97  and   103)  ; 

Houses  of 

the  Other  from  Edward  s  fourth  son,  the  Duke  York, 
of  York.     By  marriage  with  the  sister  of  the  and 
Earl  of   March,  the   House  of   York  had  suc- 
ceeded to  the  latter's   claims.     The  Beauforts  were  a 


222 


THE    DECLINE    OF    FEUDALISM.       [1435-1449 


younger  branch  of  the  Lancastrian  house,  being  of  de- 
scent from  John  of  Gaunt,  Duke  of  Lancaster,  by  his 
third  wife.  Still  another  Lancastrian  offshoot  was  the 
family  of  the  Nevilles,  which  had  acquired  a  royal  lineage 
by  the  marriage  of  Ralph  Neville,  Duke  of  Westmore- 
land, with  a  daughter 


of  John  of  Gaunt.  In 
the  female  line,  the 
Nevilles  had  allied 
themselves  by  mar- 
riage with  the  House 
of  York  ;  on  the  other 
side,  in  the  male  line, 
they  had  secured  by 
marriage  the  earldom 
of  Warwick,  and  were 
a  power  in  the  realm. 
On  the  surface  of  its 
events,  the  political 
history  of  England 
for  fifty  years  after 
Bedford  died  is  large- 
ly filled  with  strifes 
in  which  these  families  were  the  moving  spirits  and  the 
actors  most  in  view. 

The  contentions  of  Bishop  (afterwards  Cardinal)  Beau- 
fort with  the  young  king's  uncle,  Gloucester,  have  been 
mentioned  already.  Beaufort  was  a  statesman  and  a 
patriotic  man.  His  death,  in  1447,  was  a  fresh  misfor- 
tune to  England  ;  the  death  of  Gloucester,  in  the  same 
year,  was  a  relief.  The  cardinal's  nephew,  who  was 
Duke  of  Somerset,  lacked  his  uncle's  ability  and  char- 
acter, but  was  ambitious  to  exercise  his  power.  He  con- 
tested the  control  of  the  government,  first  with  the  Earl 


HUMPHREY,    DUKE    OF    GLOUCESTER. 


I450]  PARLIAMENTARY   KINGS.  223 

of  Suffolk  (who  was  overthrown  and  foully  murdered  in 
1450),  and  then  with  the  Duke  of  York,  whose  appear- 
ance on  the  scene  of  strife  opens  the  long  and  bloody 
conflict  between  the  Houses  of  Lancaster  and  York. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

97.  The  Disputed  Title  of  Henry  IV. 

Topics. 

1.  Claims  to  the  throne  of  Heury  and  Edmund  Mortimer. 

2.  Henry  a  constitutional  king. 

3.  The  first  plot  and  the  death  of  Richard  II. 
Referenxe.  —  Gardiner,  i.  286,  287. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Show  from  the  genealogical  table 
on  page  227  the  respective  claims  of  Henry  and  Edmund  Morti- 
mer. (2.)  When  did  the  hereditary  idea  of  kingship  begin  to 
overshadow  the  elective  principle  ?  (Taswell-Langmead,  220, 
221.) 
(3.)  What  setback  had  the  hereditary  idea  received  so  far  ? 

98.  Rebellion  and  War. 

Topics. 

1.  Trouble  with  Wales. 

3.  Trouble  with  Scotland  and  the  Percies. 

3.  Continued  trouble  with  Wales  and  the  condition  of  France. 

Reference.  —  Bright,  i.  277-282. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  quarrel  had  the  Percies  with 
Henrv  IV.  ?  (Bright,  i.  279.)  (2.)  Show  from  this  quarrel 
Henry's  own  feeling  about  his  right  to  the  succession.  (3.)  This 
feehng  of  Henry's  would  make  him  cautious  about  offending 
what  two  powers  in  the  state? 

99.  Origin  of  the  Stuart  Family  in  Scotland. 

Topics. 

T.  Succession  in  Scotland  after  David  II. 

2.  Captivity  of  James  I.  of  Scotland. 

100.  Persecution  of  the  Lollards. 

Topics. 

I.  Suspected  disloyalty  of  the  Lollards. 


224  PARLIAMENTARY    KINGS. 

2.  Legislation  against  them  and  persecution. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  291,  292:  Green,  265-267;  Bright,  i. 
284-286;  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  86-88  ;  Taswell-Langmead,  408- 
411.  Henry  IV.  and  the  church:  Gardiner,  i.  291,  292;  Gaird- 
ner,  H.  L.  Y.,  85-90;  Green,  265  ;  Ransome,  86,  87. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  To  please  whom  was  the  king  will- 
ing to  proceed  against  the  Lollards  ?  (2.)  Describe  the  martyr- 
dom of  William  Sawtre.  (Guest,  314.)  (3.)  In  what  other  way 
did  Henry  show  his  friendship  for  the  church?  (Gardiner,  i. 
294.)  (4.)  On  what  points  was  he  willing  to  proceed  against  the 
church  ?  (Stubbs,  C.  H.,  iii.  50,  51.)  (5.)  Henry's  attitude  toward 
her  shows  what  about  the  church's  power  ? 

101.  The  Strengthening  of  Parliament. 

Topics. 

1.  Increased  power  of  the  Commons. 

2.  Assertion  of  their  rights  with  regard  to  :  a,  taxation;  d,  official 

records  of  their  acts ;  c,  control  of  elections ;  d,  freedom  of 
speech. 

3.  The  thirty-one  articles. 

References.  —  Bright,  i.  282,  283  ;  Green,  265  ;  Ransome,  86,  87 ; 
Stubbs,  C.  H.,  iii.  ch.  xviii.;  Taswell-Langmead,  ch.  ix. ;  Green, 
H.  E.  P.,  i.491,  492;  Traill,  ii.  279-282;  H.  Taylor,  i.  book  iii. 
ch.  ii. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  causes  for  the  increased 
power  of  Parliament  ?  (Traill,  ii.  280.)  (2.)  What  powers  of 
vast  importance  did  the  Parliament  gain  by  the  king's  poverty.-* 
(Traill,  ii.  309.)  (3.)  Define  the  three  most  important  privileges 
of  Parliament,  and  show  why  they  are  essential  to  freedom. 
(Taswell-Langmead,  319-343-)  (4.)  How  did  the  two  houses 
obtain  the  privilege  of  discussing  separately  ?  (Taswell-Lang- 
mead, 310,  311.)     (5.)  What  is  the  value  of  this  privilege  ? 

102.  The  Prince  of  Wales. 
Topics. 

1.  The  prince  as  regent. 

2.  Trustworthiness  of  his  portrayal  by  Shakespeare. 

3.  Disagreements  with  his  father. 

4.  The  king's  death. 
Reference. —  Gardiner,  i.  297,  298. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.        225 

103.  The  Character  of  Henry  V. 
Topics. 

1.  His  acts  of  generosity. 

2.  His  character  in  history. 

3.  Hostility  to  the  Lollards. 

References.  —  Bright,  i.  302 ;  Gardiner,  i.  297,  298 ;  Gairdner.  H. 
L.  Y.,  90-92  ;  Guest,  314-316,  321,  322. 

104.  The  New  Attempt  against  France. 

Topics. 

1.  Henry's  design  of  conquest. 

2.  Encouragement  by  :  rt,  Enghsh  feeling  ;  b,  condition  of  France 

3.  His  army  and  the  first  five  weeks  of  the  campaign. 

4.  The  battle  of  Agincourt  and  Henry's  return  to  England. 
Reference. —  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  96-103. 

105.  Henry's  Triumphs  and  his  Death. 

Topics. 

1.  Renewed  attempts  at  conquest,  aided  by  French  factions. 

2.  Siege  of  Rouen. 

3.  The  dauphin  a  national  leader  and  the  treaty  of  Troyes. 

4.  King's  marriage  and  the  campaign  of  the  following  year. 

5.  Birth  of  an  heir  and  the  death  of  the  king. 
Reference. —  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  106-116. 

106.  Henry  VI.  and  his  Uncles. 

Topics. 

I.  Henry  V.'s  brothers  and  their  offices. 

Reference. —  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  128-132. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  right  did  Parhament  assert 
at  the  accession  of  Henry  VI.  ?  (Ransome,  87,  88.)  (2.)  Con- 
trast Bedford  and  Gloucester.     (Guest,  333.) 

107.  The  Maid  of  Orleans. 
Topics. 

1.  Character  of  Charles  VII. 

2.  The  peasant  girl  from  Lorraine. 

3.  The  Maid  in  command  at  Orleans. 

4.  Charles  crowned  at  Rheims. 

5.  Dissensions  in  the  French  camp. 

6.  Martyrdom  of  the  Maid. 


226  PARLIAMENTARY   KINGS. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  310-312;  Bright,  i.  308-311  ;  Gaird- 
ner,  H.  L.  Y.,  132-140;  Green,  274-279;  Colby,  11 3-1 17. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  Sketch  the  biography  of  Joan  of 
Arc.  (Guest,  337-342.)  (2.)  Why  were  witches  burned  1  (3.) 
What  instances  of  witches  in  the  history  of  this  country  1 

108.  Expulsion  of  the  English  from  France. 

Topics. 

1.  The  death  of  Bedford. 

2.  The  Duke  of  Burgundy  changes  sides. 

3.  Henry  VI.'s  disposition.  f 

4.  The  truce  and  Henry's  marriage. 

5.  England  loses  all  except  Calais. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  312-320  ;  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  140-161 

109.  Rising  Troubles  in  England. 

Topics. 

1.  Weakness  of  the  king. 

2.  Strife  among  the  Houses  of  York,  Beaufort,  and  Nevilleo 

3.  Appearance  on  the  scene  of  the  Duke  of  York. 
Reference.  —  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  140-161. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      227 


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RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION. 

1450-1603. 


CHAPTER   XI. 


FACTIOUS    KING-MAKING CIVIL  WAR POLITICAL 

DECLINE. 

Lancastrian  and  Yorkist  Kings  :    Henry  VI.  —  Edward 
IV.  —  Richard  III.     1450-1485. 

110.  The  State  of  England.  England  had  been  heav- 
ily burdened  by  the  cost  of  the  French  war ;  it  was 
humiliated  by  the  disastrous  ending  of  the  war ;  it  was 
troubled  by  the  disbanded  soldiers  who  streamed  back, 
bringing  habits  of  lawless  violence  ;  but  apparently  the 
country  had  never  before  been  so  prosperous  materially 
as  it  was  at  this  time.  If  prosperous,  however,  in  out- 
ward circumstances,  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that,  in 
mind,  character,  and  spirit,  the  people  had  suffered  a 
marked  decline. 

The  worst  sign  of  a  disordered  social  state  w^as  seen  in 
the  swelling  bands  of  lawless  *' retainers"  that  followed 
at  the  heel  of  every  great  lord.  Parliament  had  at- 
tempted, again  and  again,  to  check  the  growing  evil  of 
"livery  and   maintenance,"  as   it  w^as  described.      This 

foul  growth  sprang  from  seed  which  decaying 
mainte-       feudalism    had    sown.      The  vassal    of   former 

times,  feudally  bound  to  the  occasional  service 
of  a  great  earl  or  baron,  had  given  place  to  a  follower 


iSthCent.J  factious    KING-MAKING.  229 

and  partisan  less  responsible,  more  dependent  —  more  a 
servant  and  a  tool.  The  retainer  wore  his  lord's  livery, 
was  marked  with  his  badge,  was  generally  fed  at  his  board, 
was  favored  in  many  ways  by  his  patronage  and  protec- 
tion, but  most  importantly  by  the  "  maintenance  "  which 
the  great  man  agreed  to  give  him  if  he  had  any  cause  in 
court ;  which  meant,  of  course,  the  overawing  influence 
upon  judges  and  juries  that  a  powerful  noble  could  bring 
to  bear.  In  return,  the  retainer  stood  ready  to  fight  in 
his  lord's  quarrels  at  all  places  and  times.  It  was  a  kind 
of  service  and  relationship  more  dangerous  than  the  vas- 
salage of  feudalism,  as  was  shown  by  the  factiousness  and 
civil  war  that  arose  in  England  with  it,  and  which  did  not 
end  until  the  great  lords  of  the  new  system  and  their 
armies  of  retainers  had  almost  destroyed  one  another. 

The  state  of  things  in  the  church  had  grown  steadily 
worse.  The  monastic  bodies  and  the  clergy  of  the 
cathedrals  had  contrived  to  take  more  and  more  of  the 
estates  and  tithes  intended  for  the  support  of  parish 
priests.  The  latter  were  impoverished,  their  The 
number  diminished,  their  character  lowered,  ^^^^ch. 
their  influence  lessened  or  changed  from  good  to  ill, 
and  the  country  was  infinitely  harmed.  Lollardism  was 
secretly  kept  alive,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  it 
represented  a  religious  feeling  like  that  of  the  century 
before.  Literature  was  silenced.  In  the  emphatic  lan- 
guage of  a  writer  who  has  carefully  studied  the  age, 
"  there  was  no  zeal,  hardly  any  character,  no  learning 
at  all."  1 

Something  of  the  meanness  in   the  character  of  the 
time  must  be  ascribed  to  the  prosperity  that  was  being 
enjoyed.     A  sordid  taint  had  been  given  to  the  commer- 
cial spirit  of  the  towns.     They  were  ceasing  to  be  com- 
^  Rogers,  Hist,  of  Agricitltni'c  and  Prices^  vol.  iv.  ch.  v. 


230      RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [15TH  Cent. 

munities  of  self-governing  freemen,  and  were  taking  on 

an  aristocratic  form.     Increasing  wealth  had  destroyed 

the  democracy  of  the  early  gilds.     They  were  no  longer 

called   ofilds,   but  were   "mysteries,"   ''crafts," 

The  towns  •       ,,  ,    ,       1      1  11.  . 

and  the        "companies,     and  had  changed  their  constitu- 

crilds 

tions  and  their  character  with  the  change  of 
name.  The  old  gild-merchant  had  given  place  to  a  num- 
ber of  distinct  merchant-companies, — mercers',  grocers', 
drapers',  goldsmiths',  fishmongers',  etc.,  —  and  these, 
being  the  richest  of  the  companies,  had  the  greatest 
weight  in  the  towns.  In  the  companies  themselves  wealth 
had  grasped  the  controlling  power.  Journeymen  were 
being  separated  from  masters  in  the  "crafts."  "  Every- 
where the  more  opulent  citizens  filled  the  offices  and  car- 
ried on  the  routine  of  administration."  In  fact,  these 
associations,  outside  of  whose  membership  there  were 
generally  no  rights  of  burghership,  or  borough-citizen- 
ship, and  whose  representatives  comj^osed  or  controlled 
many  town  councils,  were  coming  to  be  "  close  corpora- 
tions," their  official  acts  performed  by  a  few  wealthy 
men. 

Those  who  controlled  the  municipality  controlled  its 
representation  in  Parliament,  and  the  popular  spirit  was 
vanishing  from  that.  The  representatives  of  the  towns 
had  become  even  ready  to  betray  their  fellow  commoners 
of  the  shires,  and  did  so  in  the  Parliament  of  1430,  when 
they  permitted  the  passage  of  an  act  which  took  the  vote 
for  members  of  the  House  of  Commons  away  from  the 
great  body  of  the  freemen  of  the  counties  (see  section 
1 01),  and  limited  it  to  those  who  had  "free  land  or  tene- 
ment to  the  value  of  forty  shillin2:s  by  the  year, 

Decline  ,  ,,  -r-  ^    ^^^^  ^  i 

of  the  at   least.       rorty  shillings  was   then   equal  to 

about  fifteen  times  the  same  sum  at  the  present 

day,  and  the  property  qualification  was  therefore  high. 


I450J 


FACTIOUS    KING-MAKING. 


231 


The  House  of  Commons  was  thus  made  to  be  represent- 
ative, not  of  the  common  people  of  England,  but  quite 
strictly  of  two  classes  of  the  well-to-do  or  the  rich  — 
namely,  the  landowners  and  the  men  of  trade.  Politi- 
cally, the  nation  was  now  greatly  debased,  and  it  was 
kneeling  already  to  lay  its  neck  under  the  foot  of  an 
absolute  king. 

111.  Richard,  Duke  of  York.  Notwithstanding  the 
torpor  of  political  feeling  that  had  crept  over  England, 
there  was  widespread  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  gov- 
ernment, combined  with 
much  suspicion  and  dislike 
of  Queen  Margaret  of 
Anjou,  as  a  Frenchwo- 
man, and  much  contempt 
for  the  feeble  goodness  of 
the  king.  As  yet,  Henry 
was  childless,  and  Rich- 
ard, Duke  of  York,  was 
looked  upon  as  heir-pre- 
sumptive to  the  throne. 
He  had  given  evidence 
of  strong  qualities,  and 
seemed  to  be  the  natural  hope  of  those  who  wanted 
better  government  ;  but  court  jealousies  had  excluded 
him  from  any  useful  part  in  national  affairs.  He  had 
been  given  office  in  Ireland  to  put  him  out  of  the  way. 
In  1450  there  began  to  be  a  popular  demand  for  his  pre- 
sence among  the  counsellors  of  the  king,  and  a  rebellious 
demonstration  which  seemed  to  have  that  for  its  chief 
object  was  set  on  foot  in  Kent.  Under  an 
Irish  soldier,  named  Jack  Cade,  some  20,000  or 
30,000  men  marched  to  London,  where  they  tried  and 


HENRY   VI. 


Jack  Cade. 


232  RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.  [1450-1459 

beheaded  Lord  Say,  one  of  the  most  obnoxious  of  the 
kmg's  ministers,  and  held  possession  of  the  city  during 
three  riotous  days.  In  the  end  they  were  persuaded  to 
disperse,  with  promises  of  general  pardon  ;  but  Cade 
made  fresh  disturbances  and  was  killed. 

Then  began  a  contest  for  the  control  of  the  weak 
king's  council,  between  the  Duke  of  York,  who  came 
back  from  Ireland,  on  one  side,  and  the  Duke  of  Somer- 
set, with  Queen  Margaret  supporting  him,  on  the  other. 
In  1453,  the  feeble  mind  of  the  king  gave  way,  and  Som- 
„,    ^  ,       erset  and  the  queen  (who  had  just  o^iven  birth 

The  Duke  -1  \  j  & 

of  York       to  a  son)  could  hold  their  o^round  ao:ainst  York 

Protector.  1  t^     t 

no  longer.  Parliament  was  summoned,  and  in 
March,  1454,  the  Lords,  with  approval  of  the  Commons, 
appointed  the  Duke  of  York  Protector  of  the  Realm  ; 
but  the  king  soon  recovered,  and  York's  authority  was 
at  an  end.  Fearing,  then,  or  professing  to  fear  for  his 
life,  he  rallied  his  supporters  in  arms,  and  civil  war  was 
begun. 

112.  The  First  Period  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses. 
The  question  of  right  to  the  crown  (where  no  right  in 
reality  existed,  except  as  given  by  the  will  of  Parlia- 
ment), between  the  houses  of  Lancaster  and  York,  was 
now  to  be  fought  out,  in  a  series  of  fierce,  factious  com- 
bats, known  as  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  for  the  reason 
that  a  red  rose  was  the  emblem  of  Lancaster  and  a  white 
rose  the  emblem  of  York.  In  the  first  battle  (1455),  ^^ 
Battle  of  St.  Albans,  Somerset  fell  and  his  party  was 
St.  Albans,  'beaten.  The  insanity  of  the  king  then  re- 
turned, and  York  was  again  made  protector ;  but  only  to 
be  dismissed  once  more  when  Henry  recovered,  in  the 
following  year.  For  two  years  there  was  peace,  but 
both  factions  were  pursuing  secret  designs,  and  in  1459 
they  were  again  in  arms.     Some  defection  that  occurred 


t459-M6o] 


FACTIOUS    KING-MAKING. 


233 


in  the  Yorkist  ranks  dispersed  that  party,  however, 
and  the  leaders  fled  to  Ireland  and  France,  where  they 
planned  their  undertakings  anew.  In  the  following  sum- 
mer they  reappeared  in  England,  encountered 
the  royal  forces  in  battle  at  Northampton  (July  Northamp- 
10,  1460),  defeated  them  and  captured  the  king. 
Then  the  Duke  of  York  made  a  formal  presentation  to 
Parliament  of  his  claim  to  the  crown.  After  much  dis- 
cussion it  was  agreed,  with  King  Henry's  assent,  that 


enxtLAnd  during  the  wars  of  the  roses. 


the  latter  should  wear  the  crown  while  he  lived,  but  that 
the  succession  should  go  to  the  duke  and  his  heirs  ;  and 
this  agreement  was  embodied  in  a  parliamentary  act. 

Queen  Margaret,  w^ho  had  escaped  northward,  refused 
to  abandon  what  she  believed  to  be  the  rights  of  her  in- 
fant son,  and  she  found  many  supporters  who  were 
ready  to  fight  in  her  cause.     She  gathered  a  powerful 


234  RENAISSANCE   AND   REFORMATION.  [1460-1461 

army,  which  the  Duke  of  York  made  a  fatal  mistake  in 
attackins:,  at  Wakefield,  in  December,  and  there 

Battle  of  ° 

Wakefield    he  was  defeated  and   slam.      His   second  son 
of  St.  and  his  chief  supporter,  the  Earl  of  Salisbury, 

head  of  the  Neville  family,  were  taken  in  the 
fight  and  put  to  death.  Moving  southward,  toward  Lon- 
don, the  queen  and  her  army  were  met  at  St.  Albans 
(February  17,  1461)  by  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  Salisbury's 
son,  who  brought  King  Henry  in  his  train.  Again  the 
stout-hearted  queen  was  victorious  and  rescued  her  help- 
less husband  from  his  captivity. 

Meantime,  the  Duke  of  York's  eldest  son,  Edward, 
who  succeeded  to  his  claims,  had  been  raising  forces  in 

the  west,  and  had  fouo^ht  a  successful  battle  at 

Battle  of  .  ,  ^ 

Mortimer's  Mortimers  Cross  (February  2,  1461),  defeating 
the  king's  half-brother,  Jasper  Tudor,  Earl  of 
Pembroke,  whose  father.  Sir  Owen  Tudor,  he  took  pris- 
oner and  beheaded,  in  the  savage  manner  of  the  time. 
This  Tudor  family  is  one  that  will  presently  be  conspic- 
uous in  our  tale.  From  the  field  of  his  victory  Edward 
moved  to  a  junction  with  the  beaten  forces  of  Warwick, 
and  together  they  entered  London,  which  favored  the 
Yorkist  cause.  There  Edward,  with  the  acclamation  of 
a  crowd  of  citizens,  was  proclaimed  king,  on  the  ground 
that  Henry  had  broken  the  agreement  of  the  previous 
year. 

Queen  Margaret  with  her  army,  and  with  the  husband 
and  son  for  whom  she  fought,  retreated  to  Yorkshire, 
Battles  of  pursucd  by  Edward  and  Warwick,  and  was 
bridge  and  beaten  in  two  fierce  battles,  fought  at  Ferry- 
Towton.  bridge  and  at  Towton  (March  27-29).  No  less 
than  28,000  are  said  to  have  perished  in  the  fight  at 
Towton  alone.  The  Lancastrian  cause  was  crushed. 
Henry  and  Margaret  fled  to  Scotland ;  Edward  returned 


146I-I465] 


FACTIOUS    KING-MAKING. 


235 


in  triumph  to  London,  and  was  crowned  without  waiting 
for  Parhament  to  pronounce  upon  his  claims  ;  but  Parlia- 
ment was  obsequious  when  it  assembled  in  November, 
affirming  the  title  by  which  he  had  assumed  to  be  king, 
and  branding  Henry  as  a  usurper  of  the  throne. 

113.  Edward  IV.     While  it  is  evident  that  the  people 
at  large  took  little  active  part  in  this  factious  contest  of 
great  families,  there  is  no  doubt  that  popular  feeling  ran 
in  Edward's  favor  at  first.     Government  under  Henry 
had  fallen  into  contempt.     Queen  Margaret,  who  sought 
help  wherever  she  could  find  it,  in  Scotland  or  P" ranee, 
was  regarded  with  distrust 
and  dislike.     Her  brave  en- 
deavors for  her  husband  and 
son  were  prejudicial  to  both. 
Edward,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  the  good  repute  of  his 
father  to   recommend   him, 
and   won   a  personal  liking 
by  pleasant  ways  of  his  own. 
The  Earl  of  Warwick,  who 
stood  behind  him,  was  the 
most  popular  and  powerful 
noble  of  the  day.    Thus  the 
prospects  of  the  new  reign 
appeared    reasonably     fair ; 
though  the  indomitable  Margaret  of  Anjou  kept  her  cause 
alive,  and  was  able,  with  help  got  in  Prance,  to  reappear 
in  the  north  of  England  in  the  spring  of  1464.   Batuesof 
Beaten  then  in  two  battles,  at  Hedgeley  Moor  moo? and 
and  Hexham,  —  her  leading  partisans  taken  and  Hexham, 
put  to  death,  —  there  seemed  to  be  an  end  to  her  hopes. 
In   the  following  year,   Henry,  entering    Lancashire  in 
secret,  was  captured  and  committed  to  the  Tower. 


EDWARD    IV. 


236  RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.  [1464-1469 


But  Edward,  by  his  own  acts,  broke  the  main  prop  of 
his  throne  just  when  it  seemed  to  be  made  secure.  Earl 
Warwick  planned  for  him  a  politic  marriage  with  the 
sister  of  the  Queen   of  France.     Edward  disappointed 

him  by  secretly  marry- 
ing a  young  widow, 
Elizabeth  Woodville, 
daughter  of  a  Lancas- 
trian lord.  He  fol- 
lowed the  marriage  by 
an  unwise  haste  in  be- 
stowing great  ofifices, 
titles,  and  estates  on 
The  Wood-   the  relatives 

villes.  Qf    his    ^^ifg^ 

—  the  Woodvilles,  pre- 
viously a  family  of  no 
great  note.  These 
soon  formed  a  close 
circle  round  the 
throne,  pushing  away 
the  Nevilles  and  other 
great  Yorkist  houses,  who  watched  the  intrusion  wdth 
jealous  disgust.  Still  further,  the  king  offended  Warwick 
by  forming  an  alliance  with  the  Duke  of  Burgundy,  and 
planning  another  ambitious  war  with  France,  when  the 
earl,  more  wisely,  was  seeking  to  bring  England  into 
friendship  with  Louis  XL,  the  shrew^d  French  king. 
By  these  various  causes  Warwick  was  alienated  from 
Edward,  and  drew  the  latter' s  brother,  Georo^e, 

Warwick  '  ^  .  . 

the  King-     Dukc  of  Clarcncc,  into  confederacy  with  him. 

maker. 

Warwick's  feeling  was  widely  shared ;  for  the 
young  king  Edward  had  disappointed  the  hopes  with 
which  he  was  crowned.     He  had  proved  to  be  an  idler 


WARWICK,    FROM    THE    ROUS    ROLL. 


1470-1471] 


FACTIOUS    KING-MAKING. 


237 


and  a  spendthrift  ;  he  pursued  scandalous  pleasures ;  he 
gave  England  no  better  government  than  it  had  before. 
A  number  of  insurrections  occurred,  and  there  were  con- 
fused hostilities  for  a  time,  which  need  not  be  detailed. 
These  resulted  in  the  flight  of  Warwick  and  Clarence 
to  France,  where  they  leagued  themselves  with  Queen 
Margaret  and  came  back  to  England  in  September,  1470, 
as  chiefs  of  the  Lancastrian  cause.  Henry  was  to  be 
restored  to  the  throne,  and  Clarence  was  to  have  a  right 
of  succession  if  Henry's  line  should  fail. 

114.  Edward's  Flight  and  Return.  In  the  face  of 
this  combination  Edward  lost  courage  and  fled  to  Hol- 
land, seeking  help  from  Duke 
Charles  of  Burgundy,  who  had 
married  his  sister.  The  royal  pris- 
oner in  the  Tower  was  set  free  and 
once  more  placed  on  the  throne, 
with  Warwick  in  actual  power.  The 
apathetic  nation  seemed  as  ready 
to  submit  to  one  party  as  the  other. 
Either,  with  a  king's  name  to  use, 
could  control  the  election  of  a  Par- 
liament obedient  to  its  commands. 
For  some  months  the  restored  king 
seemed  likely  to  end  his  reign  in 
peace.  But  Edward  had  an  ally 
that  may  not  have  been  taken  into 
account.  The  foreign  merchants 
of  the  Hanse  towns  feared  the  loss 
of  their  privileges  in  England  if 
French  influence  prevailed  there,  and  they  are  said  to 
have  joined  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  in  very  liberal  and 
effective  aid  to  the  exiled  king.  With  that  help  he,  in 
his  turn,  came  back.     Collecting  an  army  on  the  way, 


ARMOR    OF    CHARLES    THE 
150LD    OF    BURGUNDY. 


238  RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.  [1471-1479 

he  marched  to  London  and  was  gladly  received,  the 
unfortunate  Henry  falling  into  his  hands.  Three  days 
Battle  of  later  (April  14,  1471),  he  fought  Warwick  at 
Death^of  Bamct,  and  *'the  King-maker,"  as  the  great  earl 
Warwick.  ]^g^^  comc  to  be  Called,  was  defeated  and  slain. 
On  that  same  day  Queen  Margaret  had  reached  England 
with  her  son,  then  eighteen  years  old.  The  relics  of  her 
ill-fated  party  rallied  around  her  and  made  one  more  vain 
stand,  at  Tewkesbury,  and  there  (May  4,  1471)  the  war, 
as  between  York  and  Lancaster,  came  to  an  end.  Ed- 
ward, merciless  in  his  triumph,  gave  no  quarter ;  the 
Death  of  young  priucc  fell,  with  his  friends,  while  Mar- 
Henry  IV.  garet  became  a  prisoner.  A  few  days  later,  the 
victor  reentered  London,  and  that  night  Henry  VL  died 
suddenly  in  the  Tower.  That  he  was  secretly  murdered 
there  has  never  been  a  doubt. 

Not  satisfied  with  the  death  of  his  rival  and  his  rival's 
son,  nor  with  the  great  slaughter  of  Lancastrians  in  the 
field,  Edward  hunted  the  party  down  with  an  almost 
insatiate  thirst  for  blood,  and  stripped  its  families  of 
their  estates.  He  was  energetic  in  that ;  he  was  ener- 
getic and  skilful,  too,  in  mercenary  arts.  He  engaged 
personally  in  operations  of  trade,  with  success.  He 
invented  an  ingenious  mode  of  begging  money  from 
his  subjects,  in  large  or  small  sums,  according  to  their 
"Benevo-  nicaus,  calling  the  extorted  gift  a  ''benevo- 
lences."  lencc,"  to  give  it  a  pretty  name.  Where  no 
money  was  to  be  gained,  or  revenge  to  be  sought,  or 
personal  power  to  be  advanced,  Edward  IV.  had  little 
time  or  care  to  waste  on  the  business  of  the  state.  His 
pleasures  demanded  the  chief  attention  of  his  mind. 

The  king's  two  brothers  were  men  less  admirable  than 
himself.  Clarence,  the  elder,  who  played  treason  with 
Warwick,   had   earned  pardon,  but  not   forgiveness,  by 


1479-14S3]  FACTIOUS    KING-MAKING.  239 

treachery  to  the  Kmg-maker  when  the  star  of  the  latter 
decUned.  The  younger  brother,  "Richard,  Duke  Richard  of 
of  Gloucester,  had  shared  Edward's  fortunes  Gloucester, 
throughout ;  fought  valiantly,  as  a  lad  of  eighteen,  at  Bar- 
net  and  Tewkesbury,  and  was  accused  of  having  killed 
the  young  Prince  of  Wales  with  his  own  hands.  Bitter 
jealousy  and  rivalry  grew  up  between  the  two;  but  the 
feebly  treacherous  Clarence  was  no  match  for  the  bold, 
unscrupulous,  cool,  and  clear-brained  Gloucester,  who 
proved  to  be  a  man  of  extraordinary  powers.  There  are 
no  open  marks  of  Gloucester's  hand  in  the  measures  that 
swept  Clarence  from  his  path,  and  yet  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that  he  moved  some  of  the  secret  springs,  and 
that  he  and  Edward  were  equally  guilty  of  their  brother's 
death.  Clarence's  old  treasons  were  suddenly  Death  of 
brought  up  against  him  ;  he  was  impeached,  con-  Clarence, 
demned,  and  executed  (February,  1479)  ^o  secretly,  in 
the  Tower,  that  the  mode  of  his  death  has  never  been 
known.  A  story  that  he  chose  to  be  drowned  in  a  butt 
of  Malmsey  wine  may  possibly  be  true. 

115.  The  Usurpation  of  Richard  III.  Edward's 
manner  of  life  was  not  calculated  to  give  him  length  of 
days,  and  he  died  in  the  spring  of  1483,  at  the  age  of 
forty-two,  leaving  two  sons,  Edward  and  Richard,  the 
elder  being  then  in  his  thirteenth  year.  The  queen, 
their  mother,  and  her  kindred,  who  were  much  disliked, 
made  a  futile  attempt  to  keep  in  their  hands  the  guard- 
ianship of  the  young  Prince  Edward  (commonly  entitled 
King  Edward  V.,  though  he  never  received  the  crown). 
Gloucester  had  little  difficulty  in  securing  the  person  of 
the  prince  and  causing  himself  to  be  declared,  by  the 
late  king's  council,  Protector  of  the  Realm.  He  was 
helped  in  this  by  Lord  Hastings,  the  president  of  the 
council ;  but  when  Hastings  proved  an  obstacle  to  the 


240 


RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION. 


[1483 


further  aim  that  was  in  Richard's  evil  mind,  he  was  dar- 
ingly snatched  from  the  very  council  chamber, 
of  Lord  and  beheaded  on  the  instant,  without  trial,  at 
as  mgs.  ^^^^  Protector's  command.  Opposition  was  ter- 
rorized by  the  ruthless  audacity  with  which  Richard 
strode  forward  to  the  seizure  of  the  crown.  In  June, 
a   Parliament   (not   afterwards   recognized   as   such)  was 

brought  together, 
which  decided,  with 
pitiful  servility,  that 
the  marriage  of  Ed- 
ward IV.  with  Eliza- 
beth Woodville  had 
been  brought  about 
by  sorcery  and  was 
illegal ;  that  the  chil- 
dren of  Edward  were 
illegitimate ;  that  the 
Duke  of  Clarence's 
son  was  disabled  from 
claiming  the  throne 
by  his  father's  attaint 
of  treason  ;  that  Rich- 
ard was,  therefore, 
entitled  to  the  crown. 
On  that  decision  he 
was  proclaimed  king,  and  his  coronation  took  place  in 
July.  He  had  filled  the  city  with  armed  men,  and  none 
dared  to  resist. 

Both  of  the  young  princes,  his  nephews,  were  at  this 
time  in  Richard's  power.  The  younger  had  been  in 
sanctuary  with  his  mother  at  Westminster,  but  the 
treacherous  usurper  had  lured  him  out,  and  the  two 
doomed  brothers  were  together  in  the  Tower.     There, 


THI'  MURDERED  PRINCE  CALLED  EDWARD 
v.,  FROM  AN  OLD  MS. 


1483] 


FACTIOUS    KING-MAKING. 


241 


at  some  unknown  time  in  that  year,  in  some  unknown 

way,  they  were  put  to  death.     Only  the  fact  of  Murder  of 

the  murder  is  certain  ;  that  they  were  smothered  ^i^epnnces. 

is  a  probably  true  account.     Before  the  princes  died  there 

were  conspiracies  against 

Richard  on  foot,  and  they 

were  stimulated  by  the 

horrible  crime.     But  no 

one   who    could   dispute 

the  usurper's  title  to  the 

throne  with    a    stronger 

hereditary  claim  than  his 

own  had  now  survived. 

The  candidate  most 
promising  was  found  to 
be  Henry  Tudor,  Earl  of 
Richmond,  whose  lineage 
branched  away  rather 
widely  from  the  Lancas- 
trian royal  stem.  His  grandmother  was  Catherine  of 
France,  the  widowed  queen  of  Henry  V.,  who  had  taken 
for  a  second  husband  Owen  Tudor,  an  accomplished  and 
handsome  Welsh  chief.  That,  of  course,  brought  no 
blood  of  English  royalty  into  Henry's  veins.  But  his 
father,  Edmund  Tudor,  created  Earl  of  Rich-  Henry  of 
mond  by  Henry  VI.  (his  half-brother),  had  mar-  Richmond, 
ried  Margaret  Beaufort,  heiress  of  whatever  rights  could 
be  drawn  from  the  third  marriage  of  John  of  Gaunt,  to 
which  the  origin  of  the  Beaufort  family  was  traced.  It 
was,  therefore,  to  his  mother  that  Henry  of  Richmond 
owed  a  remote  and  questionable  claim  to  the  English 
crown.  It  was  proposed  and  agreed  that  he  should 
strengthen  it  by  marrying  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  daugh- 
ter of  Edward  IV.      On  that  understanding,  the  Earl  of 


RICHARD    III. 


242  RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.  [1483-1485 

Richmond  became  the  accepted  chief  of  all  who  would 
cast  Richard  from  the  throne. 

116.  Defeat  and  Death  of  Richard.  The  first  rising, 
in  October,  1483,  failed  completely,  and  cost  the  life  of 
its  leader,  the  Duke  of  Buckingham,  who  had  done  more 
than  any  other  to  help  Richard  in  the  first  instance,  but 
who  deserted  his  cause.  Richmond,  attempting  an  in- 
vasion from  Brittany,  was  baffled  by  a  storm  and  turned 
back ;  but  only  to  make  preparations  anew.  Richard, 
on  his  side,  strove  to  strengthen  himself  by  popular 
measures,  and  sought,  when  his  young  wife  died,  to 
marry  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  his  niece.  But  nothing 
availed  to  win  the  support  of  the  nation,  and  its  best 
wishes  were  with  Henry  of  Richmond  when  he  landed  in 
Wales  (June,  1485),  and  marched  thence  into  the  Eng- 
lish Midlands,  gathering  forces  as  he  advanced.  Richard 
Battle  of  encountered  him  at  Bosworth  (August  22)  with 
Bosworth.  g^j-^  army  much  superior  in  numbers  ;  but  some 
had  followed  him  only  to  betray  him,  and  went  over  to 
Henry  in  the  midst  of  the  battle.  He  fought  with  the 
courage  of  despair,  finding  death  on  the  field,  as  he  no 
doubt  meant  to  do.  The  battered  crown  that  he  had 
worn  on  his  helmet  was  picked  up  in  a  thorn  bush  and 
placed  on  the  victor's  head. 

117.  The  Condition  of  England  at  the  End  of  the 
Civil  Wars.  The  long  civil  wars  appear  to  have  been 
less  disturbing  to  the  people  at  large  than  might  have 
been  supposed.  The  old  nobility  of  the  kingdom  was 
well-nigh  stricken  down,  by  slaughter  in  battle,  execu- 
tions, exile,  impoverishment ;  and  new  families,  with  less 
prestige  and  power,  rose  to  the  higher  ranks.  But  the 
mass  of  the  people  took  small  part  in  what  were  really 
factious  contests  of  the  aristocracy  alone,  and  they  were 
only  touched  occasionally  by  the  movements  of  armies 


1485] 


FACTIOUS    KING-MAKING. 


243 


quickly  formed  and  quickly  dispersed.  They  suffered 
mainly  from  the  general  weakening  of  authority  and  law, 
the  failure  of  "governance,"  as  it  was  described,  that  had 
been  going  on  since  the  century  began. 

The  state  of  the  country  was  one  in  which  an  arbitrary 
government  was  sure  to  grow  up.      Parliament  no  longer 
represented    anything,    in    either    house.      Re- 
straint upon  the  monarchy  by  a  stronsr  nobility  political 

^  J       J  ^  ■'     situation. 

had  disappeared  ;   restraint  by  a  body  of  Com- 
mons, organized  and  spirited  enough  to  take  the  respon- 
sibility for  public  rights   and  public  interests  on  them- 
selves, was  yet  to  come. 

Considerable  parts  of  the  people  seem  to  have  pros- 
pered materially,  even  during  the  wars.      Some 
towns  fell  into  decay  ;  others  thrived  in  manu-  industrial 
factures  or  trade  or  both.     The  woollen  manu- 
facture made  strides ; 
the      exportation      of 
English  cloth,  instead 
of  English  wool,  was 
gaining  fast. 

Castle-building, 
which  had  declined 
since  the  reign  of  Ed- 
ward III.,  when  gun- 
powder and  Architec- 
cannon  came  *^^^- 
into  use,  was  ended 
in  this  period.  Coun- 
try mansions  were  be- 
ing extensively  built. 
Brickmaking,  lost  as 
an  art  since  Roman 
times,  was  not  revived 


OLDEST    KNOWN    REPRESENTATION    OF   A 
PRINTING    PRESS. 


244  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1477 

in  England  until  near  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
A  declining  taste  in  architecture  was  shown. 

118.  Introduction  of  Printing.  It  seems  very 
strange  that  the  peaceful  art  of  arts  —  the  grandest  of 
inventions  in  its  civilizing  effect  —  should  have  come 
to  England  in  the  midst  of  times  so  disordered  as  those 
which  this  chapter  describes.  It  was  in  1477  that 
William  Caxton,  who  had  learned  the  new  art  at  Cologne, 
brought  type  from  Bruges  and  set  up  the  first  press  on 

*Tr*  C  m^jjt^  ^p«)  &)ai  tboH  ^m  fettgc 
•^»  lj)ff  fo  finotbc  t^e  ctaf  6e  of  ^Ifcme  50; 
iicintpl^,  ^n^  fo  fct  fo  ft«|x  onipnuetl]!^!^ 
W«  of  ^6  6»j>/  fottte^  mage  not ««)  <o 

FACSIMILE    SPECIMEN    OF    CAXTON'S    PRINTING. 

English  soil,  in  the  precincts  of  Westminster  Abbey, 
where  he  printed  the  *'  Dictes  or  vSayings  of  Philoso- 
phers," the  earliest  of  English  printed  books.  Within 
three  years  his  busy  press  had  given  England  some 
thirty  books,  large  and  small  (including  among  them. 
Chaucer's  "  Canterbury  Tales  "),  which  indicates  the  lit- 
erary thirst  of  the  time.  It  thirsted  for  letters,  but  it 
did  not  produce.  The  last  half  of  the  century  is  a  barren 
time  in  English  literature.  Its  most  worthy  work  is 
one  in  politics,  by  Sir  John  Fortescue,  an  exiled  English 
judge,  of  the  Lancastrian  party,  who  wrote  "On  the 
Governance  of  the  Kingdom  of  England  "  or  "  The  Dif- 
ference between  Absolute  and  Limited  Monarchy,"  in 
the  spirit  of  a  constitutionalist  of  modern  times. 


TOPICS,  REFERENCES,  AND   QUESTIONS.     245 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

110.  The  State  of  England. 
Topics. 

1.  Consequences  of  the  war  with  France. 

2.  The  retainers :  a^  their  origin  ;  b^  their  service  to  their  lords. 

3.  Condition  of  the  church,  and  of  literature. 

4.  Decay  of  gilds  and  popular  representation  in  towns. 

5.  Forty  Shillings  Act. 

References.  —  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  ii.  470,  471  ;  Green,  288-292. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  had  been  the  condition  of  the 
franchise  previous  to  the  Forty  Shillings  Act.^  (2.)  Why  is  this 
act  a  notable  one  ?  (3.)  How  long  did  it  remain  in  force  '^. 
(Green,  272,  273  ;  Taswell-Langmead,  340,  341.) 

111.  Richard,  Duke  of  York. 

Topics. 

1.  Dissatisfaction  with  the  government. 

2.  Demand  for  Duke  of  York  and  Jack  Cade's  rebellion. 

3.  The  duke  as  protector. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  i.  320-322. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  Wliat  other  reason  for  Jack  Cade's 
rebelUon  besides  support  of  the  Duke  of  York  ?  (Guest,  348.) 
(2.)  Why  was  the  birth  of  an  heir  to  the  king  the  signal  for  the 
breaking  out  of  the  War  of  the  Roses  ?  (Bright,  i.  322.)  (3.) 
What  was  the  central  issue  of  the  War  of  the  Roses  ?  (Traill, 
ii.  278.) 

112.  The  First  Period  of  the  War  of  the  Roses. 

Topics. 

1.  Emblems  of  the  war. 

2.  Battle  of  St.  Albans  and  its  results. 

3.  Battle  of  Northampton  and  settlement  of  the  succession. 

4.  Battle  of  Wakefield  and  second  battle  of  St.  Albans. 

5.  Edward  of  York  and  the  battle  of  Mortimer's  Cross. 

6.  Battles  of  Ferrybridge  and  Towton,  and  crowning  of  Edward. 
References. — Bright,  i.  322-327;  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  163-175. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  The  failure  of  the  Lancastrians  to 

keep  the  throne  shows  the  break-down  of  what  principle  of  king- 
ship ?     (2.)  Edward  IV.'s  coronation  strengthens  what  principle 


246  FACTIOUS   KING-MAKING. 

of  kingship?  (Taswell-Langmead,  221.)  (3.)  What  underlying 
causes  for  the  war  were  there  in  the  condition  of  the  country  ? 
(Guest,  356-358.) 

113.  Edward  IV. 
Topics. 

1.  Circumstances  favoring  Edward. 

2.  Margaret  reappears  in  tlie  north. 

3.  Edward's  marriage  and  its  offence  to  the  Earl  of  Warwick. 

4.  Disappointment  in  Edward  and  the  conspiracy  of  Warwick. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  329-333  ;  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  175-188. 

114.  Edward's  Flight  and  Return. 
Topics. 

1.  Edward  in  Holland  and  the  restoration  of  Henry  VI. 

2.  The  Hanse  towns  aid  Edward. 

3.  Battles  of  Barnet  and  Tewkesbury. 

4.  Character  and  talents  of  Edward. 

5.  Strife  between  the  king's  brothers. 
References.  —  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  188-209. 

116.  The  Usurpation  of  Richard  III. 
Topics. 

1.  Edward's  death  and  his  heirs. 

2.  Gloucester  as  protector. 

3.  Gloucester  proclaimed  king. 

4.  Murder  of  the  princes. 

5.  Henry  of  Richmond  :  a^  his  descent;  b,  his  marriage. 

References.  —  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  209-222;  Colby,  122-125. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  When  Richard's  Parliament  ap- 
pointed the  protector  and  fixed  the  succession,  what  sort  of  rights 
was  it  exercising?  (2.)  What  is  meant  by  being  in  sanctuary.? 
(Guest,  361.)  (3.)  How  did  Henry's  marriage  unite  the  claims  of 
Lancaster  and  York  ? 

116.  Defeat  and  Death  of  Richard. 
Topics. 

1.  The  first  uprising. 

2.  Richard's  attempts  to  strengthen  himself. 

3.  The  battle  of  Bosworth. 
Reference.  —  Gairdner,  H.  L.  Y.,  231-236. 


TOPICS,  REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.     247 

117.  The  Condition  of  England  at  the  End  of  the  Civil 

Wars. 
Topics. 

1.  Effect  on  the  people  and  on  the  nobility  of  the  wars. 

2.  Decline  of  Parliament. 

3.  Prosperity  in  trade  and  condition  of  rural  labor. 

4.  Condition  of  architecture. 

References.  —  Stubbs,  C.  H.,  iii.  679-696;  Bright,  i.  349-354; 
Cunningham,  G.  E.  I.  C,  i.  ch.  iv.  Industry  and  commerce  : 
Traill,  ii.  393-407.     Castle-building  :  Traill,  ii.  363,  364. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  was  the  extent  of  the  extermi- 
nation of  the  noble  houses?  (Ransome,  95,)  (2.)  How  would 
this  affect  Parliament  ?  (3.)  What  ominous  features  of  con- 
tinental governments  did  not  follow  in  England  the  fall  of  the 
nobility?  (Ransome,  95.)  (4.)  What  was  the  social  effect  in 
England  of  the  War  of  the  Roses?  (5.)  What  increase  of  in- 
closures  in  this  and  the  preceding  reigns  ?  (Gardiner,  i.  320.)  (6.) 
What  was  the  effect  of  this  upon  labor  ?  (Cunningham  and 
McArthur,  82-84;  Guest,  358.) 

118.  Introduction  of  Printing. 

Topics. 

1.  William  Caxton  and  the  printing  press. 

2.  Literature  of  the  times. 

References.  —  Green,  295,  296;  Traill,  ii.  527-537.  Parliament 
of  this  period :  Montague,  78-86 ;  Ransome,  90-99 ;  Stubbs,  C. 
H.,  iii.  212,  213;  Taswell-Langmead,  359,  360;  H.  Taylor,  i.  576- 
588. 


LINEAGE  OF  HENRY  VII.  FROM  JOHN  OF  GAUNT,  THIRD 

SON    OF    EDWARD    III. 

John  of  Gaunt, 

,340- I3W,  (  John  Beaufort,  (  John  Beaufort,   f  ^I^'^Za'  ( 

marned  ^^^^^     '  \  \si  Bui,  of     \     x.^^         ,  t    w       f  Henry  VII. 

(third  wife)  )        c^„,.^,w  /        V^»/^^c/^/         '      Kdnuind  ludor,      ( 

Catherine  ^       ■^ofuer^ei.  {       iyomerset.        y  Earl  of  Richmond. 

Swynford. 


SURVEY   OF   GENERAL    HISTORY. 

THE    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY. 

The  Rise  of  Absolute  Monarchy  and  the  Growth  of  Religious 
l7idependence.  Partly  as  one  of  the  causes  and  partly  as  one 
of  the  consequences  of  the  breaking  up  of  the  feudal  system 
in  Europe,  kings  and  sovereign  princes  of  every  rank  gained 
power,  and  their  governments  took  on  a  more  absolute  form. 
The  check  in  which  they  had  been  held  by  strong  vassals  — 
often  stronger  than  themselves  —  was  weakened,  and  finally 
disappeared,  before  their  subjects  at  large  became  able  to 
put  a  curb  of  their  own  in  its  place.  So  it  happens  that  the 
time  to  which  we  look  as  the  beginning  of  our  modern  era  in 
civilization  was  actually  a  time  of  darkening  in  political  cir- 
cumstances, so  far  as  liberty  for  the  people  was  concerned. 
This  effect  had  become  so  marked  in  the  sixteenth  century 
that  a  growth  of  despotism  in  government  was  one  of  two 
movements  that  controlled  events  in  that  age ;  the  other,  in 
strange  contrast  and  opposition,  being  a  sudden  outburst  of 
freedom  and  independence  in  religious  thought.  The  two 
movements  were  in  necessary  conflict,  and  the  history  of  the 
period  is  mainly  a  history  of  their  strife. 

The  Emperor  Charles  V.  and  his  many  Realms.  Remark- 
able consequences  came  in  this  period  from  the  marriage 
(noted  in  our  survey  of  the  preceding  age)  of  Philip,  son  of 
Mary  of  Burgundy  and  Maximilian  of  Austria,  to  Joanna, 
daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella  of  Spain.  A  son,  Charles, 
who  was  born  to  those  parents  in  the  year  1500,  became  the 
heir  of  all  that  belonged  to  the  ducal  and  royal  houses  of 
Austria,  Burgundy,  and  Spain.  He  received  his  Burgundian 
inheritance  in  1506,  his  Spanish  inheritance  in  15 16,  his  Aus- 


THE    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY.  249 

trian  inheritance  in  15 19,  and  was  elected  in  that  last-named 
year  to  the  German  and  imperial  throne.  He  was  then,  at 
the  age  of  nineteen,  the  sovereign  of  Spain,  and  of  her  vast 
possessions  in  America,  of  Sicily,  of  Naples,  of  Sardinia,  of 
Germany,  of  the  rich  provinces  of  the  Netherlands,  and  of 
all  that  the  misty  bounds  of  the  "  Holy  Roman  Empire  "  em- 
braced. No  such  overshadowing  sovereignty  had  existed  in 
Europe  since  the  day  of  Charlemagne. 

The  Protestant  Rcfonnatioti.     In  the  years  when  Charles  V. 
was  gathering  up  his  many  crowns,  Martin  Luther  in  Germany 
and  Ulrich  Zwingli  in  Switzerland   set  in  motion  that  great 
religious   revolution  called   the   Protestant    Reformation,  by 
which    the   Christian    church    in    western    Europe    was    rent 
asunder,  one  large  division,  known  since  as  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic, holding  fast  to  the  ancient  doctrines  and   modes  of  wor- 
ship, and  continuing  to  look  upon  the  pope  as  the  divinely 
appointed  head  of    the    church   of    Christ;  the  other  —  the 
Protestant  division  —  rejecting  more  or  less  of  the  beliefs  of 
the  mediaeval  church,  including  belief  in  the  authority  of  the 
pope.     To  this  movement  Charles  V.  became  a  formidable 
antagonist  at  once.      But  war  with  France  and  tasks  of  de- 
spotic government  in   Spain   and  Italy  took  so  much  of  his 
attention  and    time,  for    some  years,  that    Protestantism  in 
northern  Germany  became  a  strongly  organized  power  before 
it  was  called  upon  to  meet  the  emperor's  attacks. 

Spain.  In  Spain  and  the  Netherlands,  Charles  could  use 
his  authority  more  forcibly  and  promptly,  and  he  did  so  with 
a  cruel  hand.  Freedom  of  thought  had  been  crushed  in  Spain 
long  before  ;  but  some  remnant  of  the  old  political  freedom 
of  the  towns  had  survived,  and  he  made  haste  to  extinguish 
that.  Perhaps  it  was  not  much  missed  in  the  Spain  of  that 
day,  when  wild  excitements  of  discovery,  conquest,  and 
search  for  2:old  in  America  were  runnins:  hiHi.  Cortes  found 
Mexico  in  the  third  year  of  Charles's  reign,  and  a  dozen 
years  later  Pizarro  reached  Peru.  The  mines  of  both  coun- 
tries were  soon  pouring  an  intoxicating  poison  into  the  veins 


250  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

of  Spain,  and  her  short-lived  career  of  ruinous  glory  was 
begun. 

Charles  V.  aJid  the  Netherlands.  In  his  Dutch  and  Plemish 
dominions,  Charles  commanded  a  persecution  of  the  Protest- 
ants which  is  said  by  some  writers  to  have  destroyed  100,000 
lives.  That  is  probably  a  great  exaggeration  ;  but  the  people 
burned,  strangled,  beheaded,  and  buried  alive,  were  certainly 
an  appalling  host.  Much  faster  than  he  could  destroy  them, 
however,  rebellious  minds  were  multiplied  ;  because  the  Neth- 
erlands were  already  full  of  schools,  the  people  were  taught 
to  read,  and  no  watchfulness  could  keep  the  new  thinking 
out  of  the  land. 

Charles  V.  and  Francis  /.,  the  King  of  France.  The  one 
important  rival  of  Charles  V.  in  Europe  was  Francis  I.,  King 
of  France,  and  Italy  was  the  main  subject  of  their  strife.  A 
craving  for  Italian  conquests  had  been  roused  in  France  by 
the  expedition  of  Charles  VIII.,  in  1494  (see  page  204).  The 
attempt  of  Charles  VIII.  against  Naples  had  been  repeated 
in  the  next  reign  (of  Louis  XII.),  and  defeated  by  the  Spanish 
King  Ferdinand,  who  secured  the  Neapolitan  crown,  Louis 
had  then  won  and  lost  the  duchy  of  Milan,  and  Louis's  suc- 
cessor, Francis  I.,  had  won  it  back.  Now  came  the  young 
master  of  many  kingdoms,  the  imperial  Charles  V.,  into  the 
field,  with  determination  to  take  all  Italy  to  himself.  His 
wars  with  Francis  I.  were  the  chief  occupation  of  his  life,  and 
he  gained  his  end.  He  made  himself  practically  master  of 
Italy,  from  Naples  to  Milan.  He  was  such  a  master  as  Alaric 
had  been,  eleven  centuries  before.  To  humble  a  pope  (Cle- 
ment VII.)  who  did  not  submit  readily  to  his  commands,  he 
let  loose  upon  Rome  (1527)  an  army  of  mercenaries  who 
sacked  the  venerable  city  with  more  havoc  than  the  Goths. 
He  brought  upon  the  whole  peninsula  a  Spanish  blight  from 
which  it  has  never  recovered  to  this  day. 

Charles  V.  and  the  Germafi  Frotesta?its.  It  was  not  until 
1546  that  the  emperor  was  ready  to  make  a  serious  attack 
upon  the   Lutherans  of   Germany,   who  faced  him   with  an 


THE   SIXTEENTH   CENTURY.  25 1 

armed  league.  Luther  was  then  dead  ;  the  Protestant  princes 
were  much  divided,  accepting  no  leader,  and  for  some  years 
they  were  completely  beaten  down.  In  the  end,  however, 
they  rallied,  and,  with  help  from  France,  they  forced  the 
emperor  to  make  terms  with  them,  in  a  treaty  called  "  The 
Religious  Peace  of  Augsburg"  (1555),  which  gave  religious 
freedom  to  the  ruling  princes  of  Germany,  but  none  to  the 
people.  Each  sovereign  was  to  be  permitted  to  choose  his 
own  creed,  and  to  impose  it  on  his  subjects  without  tolerating 
any  other.  As  a  practical  consequence,  the  final  division  of 
Germany  between  Protestantism  and  Catholicism  was  settled, 
not  by  the  people,  but  by  their  princes,  and  the  former  was 
rooted  out  in  all  the  states  over  which  the  influence  of  the 
Hapsburg  or  Austrian-Spanish  family  prevailed. 

The  Catholic  Reaction^  or  Coimter- Reformation.  By  the 
middle  of  the  century,  a  powerful  reaction  against  the  Pro- 
testant Reformation  began  to  make  itself  felt,  caused  partly 
by  a  vigorous  Counter-Reformation  within  the  Roman  church, 
and  partly  by  a  sad  decline  of  religious  motive  in  the  Pro- 
testant cause.  Mercenary  and  political  aims  had  been  given 
to  the  movement ;  men  and  classes  in  powder  had  made  it  an 
opportunity  to  enrich  themselves  from  the  wealth  of  the  over- 
throw^n  church.  Among  the  humbler  followers  of  the  Refor- 
mation, there  was  still  the  sincerity  of  its  beginning ;  but 
much  of  the  control  of  it  was  in  less  honest  hands. 

At  the  same  time,  the  danger  of  the  old  church  had  brought 
a  better  class  of  men  to  its  front.  By  a  series  of  well-guided 
elections,  popes  who  gave  new  strength  to  Catholicism  were 
raised  to  the  Roman  throne.  A  general  council  of  the  church, 
assembled  at  Trent  in  1545,  undertook  some  reforms,  but  it 
did  more  in  the  way  of  fixing  the  doctrines  of  Catholicism 
and  confirming  the  authority  of  the  popes. 

To  a  great  extent,  the  old  church  was  reconstructed  and 
reconsolidated  at  this  time,  and  fresh  forces  were  enlisted 
and  organized  in  it.  Of  new  organizations,  the  most  remark- 
able was  the  Society  of  Jesus,  founded  by  Loyola,  in  1540,  on 


252  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

the  military  principle  of  absolute  obedience  to  a  commanding 
head.  Its  members,  known  as  Jesuits,  formed  an  army,  for 
the  missionary  work  of  the  church,  or  for  any  other  service, 
that  flinched  from  no  sacrifice  or  danger. 

Abdicatio?i  of  Charles  V.  In  1555,  Charles  V.,  wearied  with 
the  burden  of  his  greatness,  began  to  give  away  his  crowns. 
During  that  year  and  the  next,  he  resigned  his  hereditary 
dominions  to  his  son  Philip,  and  abdicated  the  imperial 
throne  in  favor  of  Ferdinand,  his  brother.  He  then  retired 
to  a  cloister  in  Spain,  where  the  remainder  of  his  days  were 
spent. 

Philip  II.  Philip  II.,  who  succeeded  his  father  in  the 
sovereignty  of  Spain,  Spanish  Italy,  and  the  Netherlands, 
but  who  did  not  receive  the  imperial  dignity,  is  as  hateful  a 
character  as  history  can  show.  His  sole  aim  in  life  was  to 
destroy  all  opinion  and  will  in  the  world  except  his  own. 

Philip  married  Queen  Mary  of  England,  but  his  career  in 
that  country  was  brief.  In  the  Netherlands  he  took  up  his 
father's  work  of  persecution  with  a  cold  persistency  more 
horrible  than  any  passionate  zeal.  The  suffering  people  were 
driven  to  organized  and  united  revolt  (1566),  under  the  lead 
of  a  great  noble,  William  of  Nassau,  Prince  of  Orange,  known 
as  William  the  Silent,  and  their  half-century  of  struggle  with 
the  heartless  Spaniard  is  one  of  the  most  heroic  conflicts  in 
the  history  of  the  world.  In  the  northern  provinces  the  Span- 
ish yoke  was  finally  broken,  and  the  independent  Dutch  Re- 
public was  formed,  which  rose  to  prosperity  and  greatness  as 
rapidly  as  Spain  declined.  In  the  southern  provinces  the 
struggle  failed,  and  they  sank,  like  Spain  and  Italy,  under 
the  Austrian-Spanish  blight. 

The  Huguenots  of  France.  In  the  early  years  of  the  Pro- 
testant Reformation,  it  made  great  progress  in  France  and 
had  encouragement  at  court.  King  and  court  became  hostile 
ere  long,  but  the  Protestants  grew  in  numbers  and  formed  a 
party  (called  the  Huguenots)  strong  enough  to  contend  with 
their  opponents  for  the  control  of  the  state.     The  doctrines 


THE    SIXTEENTH    CENTURY.  253 

of  the  Huguenots  were  not  those  of  Luther,  in  some  particu- 
lars, nor  their  church  organization  the  same.  They  followed 
the  sterner  teachings  of  the  French  reformer,  John  Calvin, 
and  sought  a  more  entirely  self-governing  church. 

Soon  after  the  middle  of  the  century  the  contending  reli- 
gious parties.  Huguenot  and  Catholic,  came  to  blows,  and 
France  was  torn  by  a  long  series  of  deplorable  religious  wars, 
which  the  meddling  fingers  of  Philip  of  Spain  helped  to  pro- 
long. At  a  moment  of  truce  in  those  wars,  the  horrible  Mas- 
sacre of  St.  Bartholomew's  Day  (1572)  was  contrived  by 
Catherine  de  Medici,  mother  of  the  young  king,  Charles  IX., 
and  thousands  of  the  leading  Huguenots  were  slaughtered  at 
Paris  and  in  other  towns.  From  that  time  the  Huguenot 
party  lost  ground,  and,  though  a  Huguenot,  Henry  of  Navarre 
became  King  of  France  in  1589,  he  gained  the  crown  by  re- 
nouncing the  Protestant  faith  and  submitting  to  Rome.  He 
gave  freedom  of  worship,  however,  to  the  Protestants  of 
France  by  the  famous  Edict  of  Nantes  (1593). 

The  Checking  of  the  lurks .  In  eastern  F.urope,  the  alarm- 
ing advance  of  the  Turks  was  practically  ended  when  their 
sultan,  Suleiman  the  Magnificent,  died  (1566). 

Other  Countries.  In  1547,  the  Grand  Prince  of  Moscow, 
Ivan,  called  ''  the  Terrible,"  took  the  title  of  Caesar,  or  Tsar, 
and  Russia  as  an  empire  had  its  birth.  Poland  had  doomed 
itself  to  anarchy.  Sweden  rose  to  the  lead  of  Scandinavian 
states,  and  Protestantism  was  established  in  them  all.  In 
Asia,  a  fresh  movement  of  Mongol  conquest  reached  India, 
and  planted  there  the  Mongol  or  Mogul  Empire,  which  an 
English  trading  company  afterwards  overthrew. 

Co7mnerce.  —  Exploration.  —  Colonization.  The  greatest  of 
commercial  revolutions  is  that  which  occurred  in  the  six- 
teenth century,  as  the  consequence  of  the  Portuguese  dis- 
covery of  the  ocean  route  to  India  by  way  of  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope.  The  rich  trade  of  the  east  deserted  its  old 
caravan  and  Mediterranean  lines.  For  a  century  or  more,  the 
Portuguese  controlled  the  first  handling  of  East  Indian  com- 


254  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

modities,  which  they  brought  to  Lisbon  and  there  turned  over 
to  Dutch,  English,  and  German  traders  for  distribution 
through  western  and  northern  Europe.  The  older  commer- 
cial capitals,  Venice,  Genoa,  Constantinople,  Alexandria, 
Bruges,  Antwerp,  lost  their  rank  ;  London  and  Amsterdam 
rose.  The  Hanseatic  League,  long  declining,  was  nearly  dis- 
solved. 

Not  with  quick  enterprise,  but  slowly,  the  New  World  was 

being  explored.  In  1562  and  1564,  the  Huguenot  Admiral 
Coligny  attempted,  in  Florida,  the  first  colonization  of  Euro- 
peans that  was  undertaken  in  any  part  of  what  became  the 
United  States ;  in  1565,  his  colony  was  attacked  by  Spaniards 
and  fiendishly  destroyed.  In  1585,  the  first  English  colony 
was  attempted  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  at  Roanoke,  and 
failed. 

Literature  a?id  Ai't.  Nowhere  else,  in  this  century,  was  so 
noble  a  literature  inspired  as  that  in  England  which  adorned 
the  great  Shakespearean  age ;  but  Spain  gave  birth  to  Cer- 
vantes, Portugal  to  Camoens,  Italy  to  Tasso  and  Machiavelli, 
Holland  to  Erasmus,  France  to  Rabelais  and  Montaigne. 
Except  in  the  prose  of  Luther's  translation  of  the  Bible,  which 
fixed  the  German  language  in  literary  use,  the  century  pro- 
"^uced  in  German  literature  no  notable  fruit.  With  Raphael 
and  Michael  Angelo,  Italian  art  reached  its  crowning  height, 
and  its  decline  began. 

ScieJice.  It  goes  hardly  too  far  to  say  that  modern  science 
was  born  in  this  century,  when  the  publication  of  the  Coper- 
nican  system  of  astronomy,  recognizing  the  sun  instead  of 
the  earth  as  the  centre  of  celestial  motions,  began  to  lift  the 
minds  of  men  to  a  new  standpoint  for  the  viewing  of  the 
universe,  and  to  jostle  their  thinking  of  nature  and  of  natural 
things  out  of  its  old  grooves.  But  most  of  the  early  fruit  of 
the  new  observing  and  thinking  was  ripened  in  the  next  age. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

ARBITRARY  MONARCHY THE  FOUNDING  OF  THE 

NATIONAL  CHURCH. 

Tudor  Kings  :  Henry  VII.  —  Henry  VIII.     1485-1547. 

119.    The   Opening    of   the   Modern    Bra.      At   the 

coming  in  of  the  Tudor  dynasty,  England  may  be  said  to 
have  entered  what  we  call  the  Modern  Era,  out  of  that 
state  of  society  which  we  know  as  Mediaeval,  but  do  not 
easily  define.  The  social  constitution  of  the  nation  had 
undergone  a  radical  change.  Villeinage  in  the  lowest 
ranks  and  feudal  baronage  in  the  highest  had  both  practi- 
cally disappeared,  and  the  great  middle  class  of  burgesses, 
yeomen,  and  farmers,  that  was  to  rule  England  in  the 
future,  had  begun  its  powerful  growth.  The  gild  organ- 
izations of  industry  and  the  town  organizations  of  trade 
were  in  decay,  making  way  for  national  systems  to  rise. 
Monastic  ideas  of  religious  life  had  fallen  into  contempt ; 
the  monkish  learning  and  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages 
no  longer  satisfied  minds  wakened  by  the  morning  of  a 
new  day. 

At  such  a  time,  it  seems  strange  that  the  English 
people  should  apparently  have  forgotten  their  Magna 
Carta  and  their  Model  Parliament,  and  should  have  been 
giving  an  almost  servile  obedience  to  kings  who  called 
parliaments  when  it  suited  them  to  do  so,  com- 
manded legislation  as  they  chose  to  have  it,  lutenessof 
and  took  money  from  their  subjects  very  nearly  ^^^^'^^  ^" 
as  they  pleased.     But  possibly  the  revival  of  strong  king- 


256 


RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION. 


[1485 


ship  for  a  time  was  needed  to  start  the  nation  with 
energy  in  the  race  it  had  to  run.  We  shall  see,  per- 
haps, that  the  national  spirit  found  some  tonic  in  it, 
after  all. 

120.  King  and  Parliament  under  Henry  VII.  Henry 
VII.  was  a  stranger  in  England  when  he  came  from  exile 

to  the  throne.  His  title 
to  the  crown  depended, 
even  more  than  that  of 
Henry  IV.,  on  the  na- 
tional will.  Yet  Henry 
exercised,  and  transmitted 
to  his  successors,  a  more 
independent  sovereignty 
than  England  had  yielded 
to  her  kings  for  many  gen- 
erations in  the  past.  This 
resulted  from  the  fact,  al- 
ready shown,  that,  while 
Parliament  continued  to 
be,  in  form  and  theory,  all 
that  it  had  been  made  under  Henry  HI.,  Edward  I.,  and 
Henry  IV.,  the  nation  had  lost  control  of  it,  and  the  king 
had  become  able  to  use  it  as  an  instrument,  more  often 
than  he  was  checked  by  it  as  a  coordinate  power. 

121.  Strong  Government.  Henry  saw  two  principal 
duties  before  him  when  he  came  to  the  throne  :  (i)  to 
heal  the  factions  in  the  kingdom  ;  (2)  to  establish  a  firm, 
strong  government.  It  can  be  said  with  justice  that  he 
did  both.  The  blended  white  and  red  rose  in  his  badge 
gave  a  meaning  to  his  marriage  with  the  Princess  Eliza- 
beth which  his  actions  did  not  belie.  He  was  not  the 
chief  of  a  party,  as  five  of  his  predecessors  had  been,  but 
a  really  national  king.     He  was  a  cool,  hard-tempered, 


HENRY    VII. 


14S5-1486]  ARBITRARY    MONARCHY.  257 

calculating  man  ;  not  generous  nor  genial,  but  well-bal- 
anced in  most  of  his  views. 

Especially  by  one  measure  at  the  outset  of  his  reign, 
Henry  showed  his  determination  to  amend  the  "  want  of 
governance  "  complained  of  during  the  whole  century 
past.  He  struck  at  the  root  of  faction  and  turbulence, 
by  effectually  attacking  that  organized  lawlessness  which 
the  terms  "livery  and  maintenance  "  represent  (see  sec- 
tion 1 10).     He  did  this  by  the  ao^ency  of  a  court 

,  •    ,       T^      1  •  •    1     •       •     1  •      •  Origin  of 

to  which    Parliament  gave   special  jurisdiction  the  star 
and  powers.     This  court,  however  (known  after- 
wards as  the  Star  Chamber,  from  the  place  in  which  it 
sat),  though  it  accomplished  a  great  good  at  the  begin- 
ning, became  a  source  of  deep  mischief  in  the  end. 

122.  Insurrections  and  Pretenders.  That  the  nation 
was  generally  contented  with  Henry's  government  is 
proved  by  the  little  support  given  to  numerous  attempts 
against  him.  Repeated  insurrections,  set  on  foot  or 
encouraged  by  enemies  outside  of  the  realm,  more  than 
within  it,  came  to  naught.  So  completely  had  rival 
claims  to  the  crown  been  extinguished,  except  in  the 
person  of  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  son  of  the  late  Clarence, 
whom  Henry  confined  in  the  Tower,  that  those  who 
would  rally  rebellion  against  Henry  had  to  bring  forward 
pretenders,  to  personate  either  Warwick  or  one  of  the 
young  princes  murdered  by  Richard  HI.  They  began, 
in  Henry's  second  year,  with  a  fictitious  Warwick,  who 
turned  out  to  be  an  Oxford  lad,  of  obscure  Lambert 
origin,  named  Lambert  Simnel.  A  mischievous  Simnei. 
Oxford  priest  tutored  Simnel  for  the  part  he  was  to  play, 
and  took  him  to  the  English  district  of  Ireland,  where 
the  Yorkists  were  strong.  There  he  was  received  with 
enthusiasm  as  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  escaped  from  the 
Tower  and    preparing  to   demand    the   English    crown. 


258        RENAISSANCE   AND   REFORMATION.    [1487-1497 

He  was  solemnly  crowned  at  Dublin,  and  received  from 
his  pretended  aunt,  Margaret  of  Burgundy  (sister  of 
Edward  IV.  and  second  wife  and  widow  of  Charles  the 
Bold  of  Burgundy),  a  force  of  2000  German  soldiers, 
well-trained  and  equipped.  With  these  and  an  Irish 
following  he  invaded  England,  entering  Lancashire  and 
marching  towards  York.  Few  Englishmen  joined  him, 
and  he  was  easily  defeated  and  taken  prisoner  at  Stoke. 
Henry  treated  the  pretender  with  a  wise  contempt,  spar- 
ing his  life  and  setting  him  to  work  as  a  turnspit  in  the 
royal  kitchen. 

Simnel's  ignominious  downfall  did  not  deter  another 
rash  youth  from  venturing  on  the  stage  with  the  same 
audacious  play.  The  actor  this  time  was  not  even  an 
Englishman,  but  a  native  of  Flanders,  Perkin  Warbeck 
by  name,  and  he  was  introduced  to  public  notice  as 
Richard,  Duke  of  York,  the  younger  of  the  two  sons  of 
Edward  IV.,  rescued  by  some  means  from  the  fate  which 
was  supposed  to  have  overtaken  both.  Like  Simnel, 
Warbeck  made  his  first  appearance  among  the  sympa- 
Perkin  thizing  Irish,  and  was  just  as  warmly  received. 
Warbeck.  prom  Ireland  he  went  to  France,  and  thence 
to  Flanders,  where  the  dowager  Duchess  Margaret  was 
again  ready  to  play  the  affectionate  aunt.  For  five  years 
( 1 492-1 497)  the  Perkin  Warbeck  comedy  went  on,  with 
Margaret,  Archduke  Philip,  the  Emperor  Maximilian, 
the  King  of  France,  the  King  of  Scotland,  and  various 
minor  actors  taking  parts. 

In  Scotland,  Warbeck  was  entertained  as  a  prince,  and 
married  to  a  noble  Scottish  wife.  With  King  James 
IV.  of  Scotland  he  made  a  miserable,  bootless  raid  across 
the  English  border,  and  that  ended  the  Scottish  episode. 
Finally,  in  the  autumn  of  1497,  he  ventured  from  Ireland 
into  Cornwall,  where  a  revolt  against  onerous  taxes  had 


I497-I50I] 


ARBITRARY    MONARCHY. 


259 


just  occurred.    A  few  thousands  of  the  people  joined  him 
and  he  led  them  to  Exeter ;  but  failing  to  take  that  city 
he  lost  courage  and  deserted  his  men,  flying  to  sanctuary 
in  the  Abbey  of  Beaulieu.     Again  it  was  the  warbeck's 
king's  shrewd  policy  to  treat  the  pretender  with  ®^*^- 
contempt.     His  life  being  spared,  he  made  a  full  confes- 
sion of  his  fraud.     He  was  sent  to  London  to  be  paraded 
through  the  streets,  before  being  committed  to  some 
kind  of  custody  that  was  evidently  lax,  for  he  foolishly 
ran  away.     On  being    caught   he  was   confined  in   the 
Tower ;  and  there  he  plotted  with  the  unfortunate  Earl 
of   Warwick   another   attempt   at   escape.      When    the 
scheme  was  discovered, 
Henry   committed    the 
most  cruel  injustice  of 
his    reign,   by   bringing 
both  Warwick  and  War- 
beck  to  trial  for   trea- 
sonable conspiracy  and 
taking  their  lives. 

123.  Foreign  Affairs. 
Enmity  between  Eng- 
land and  France  had  be- 
come traditional  ;  but 
when  the  French  inva- 
sions of  Italy  (see  pages 
204  and  2  50)  caused  j  eal- 
ous  alarm  among  other 

powers,  and  an  opposing  league  was  formed,  Henry  bar- 
gained sharply  with  the  allies  before  he  took  their  side. 
When  he  joined  the  league  at  last,  it  was  on  terms  which 
left  him  out  of  the  fighting,  and  which  brought  about  a 
marriage  alliance  that  seemed  to  be  of  great  advantage  to 
both  the  nations  concerned.     It  was  a  marriage  between 


KATHARINE    OF   ARAGON. 


26o        RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.    [1488-1503 

Henry's  eldest  son,  Arthur,  and  Katharine  of  Aragon, 
Spanish  ^^6  youngest  daughter  of  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
marriage.  \yQ\i^  of  Spain,  which  took  place  in  1501,  the 
bride  being  sixteen  and  the  bridegroom  fifteen  years  old. 
A  few  months  later,  the  bridegroom  died,  and  negotia- 
tions were  opened  for  a  marriage  of  Katharine  to  the 
king's  younger  son,  his  namesake,  Henry,  then  heir  to 
the  throne  ;  but  some  years  passed  before  that  fateful 
marriage  was  brought  about. 

Another  marriage,  which  had  more  fortunate  results, 
between  Henry's  daus-hter,  Maro^aret,  and  Kins: 

Union  of  -^  &  '  fc.  '  t> 

the  English  Jamcs  IV.   of  Scotland,  was  effected   in  1503. 

and  Scot- 

tish  Alter  exactly  a  hundred  years,  this  led,  as  we 

shall  see,  to  a  union  of  the  English  and  Scottish 
crowns. 

124.  Commerce  and  Discovery.  More  than  any  of 
his  predecessors,  Henry  seems  to  have  been  attentive  to 
the  commerce  of  England,  and  employed  his  shrewdest 
diplomacy  in  making  openings  for  English  traders  in 
markets  abroad.  The  English  were  hampered  by  many 
exclusive  privileges  given  formerly  to  foreign  traders, 
which  Edward  IV.,  repaying  his  obligations  to  the  Han- 
sards, had  lately  renewed  and  increased.  Henry  VII.  ex- 
erted himself,  not  always  in  fair  ways,  perhaps,  to  release 
the  commerce  of  the  country  from  these  injurious  bonds. 

It  was  in  Henry's  reign  that  Columbus  went  begging 
from  court  to  court  for  a  fleet  and  a  commission  to  sail 
westward  and  to  find  what  the  unexplored  ocean  con- 
tained. While  he  waited  wearily  in  Spain,  the  indomita- 
ble Genoese  sent  his  brother  Bartholomew  to  the  English 
king ;  but  the  unlucky  brother,  captured  on  the  way  and 
stripped  by  pirates,  was  long  in  reaching  Lon- 

Columbus.       ,  ,  111  1     •        1  •  •      •  1 

don,  and  much  delayed  m  his  mission  when 
there.     Apparently  he  had  encouragement  from  Henry 


H88-I497]  ARBITRARY   MONARCHY.  261 

at  last,  but  how  much  is  not  known.  Whatever  it  may- 
have  been  was  too  late.  Before  Bartholomew  Columbus 
reached  Spain  again,  Christopher  had  obtained  his  little 
fleet  of  ships  and  had  set  sail  on  the  memorable  voyage. 

But,  having  missed  the  glory  and  the  empire  won  by 
Isabella  of  Castile,  Henry  became  her  earliest  competitor 
in  the  exploration  of  the  New  World.  He  took  into  his 
service  another  Italian,  John  Cabot,  and  sent  him  across 
the  Atlantic  in  1497.  John  Cabot  was  the  first  xhe 
to  touch  the  shore  of  the  American  continent,  ^^^°^^- 
which  Columbus  had  not  done  ;  but  the  point  at  which 
he  reached  it,  probably  in  or  near  the  St.  Lawrence  Gulf, 
is  not  known.  Of  a  second  voyage  made  in  the  follow- 
ing year  by  John  Cabot,  or  his  son,  Sebastian,  or  both, 
the  results  are  almost  equally  in  doubt. 

125.  Ireland.  As  Henry  neglected  nothing  within 
the  compass  of  his  government,  he  gave  an  attention  to 
the  affairs  of  Ireland  which  that  country  had  not  received 
since  its  partial  conquest  by  Henry  II.  ;  but,  unfortu- 
nately, what  he  did  only  confirmed  and  established  the 
hostile  separation  of  the  English  race  in  Ireland  from 
the  Celts.  The  Anglo-Irish  and  the  Celtic 
Irish  were  on  nearly  the  same  plane  of  rude  of  the 

Xrisli 

half-civilization  ;  yet  they  did  not  and  could 
not  become  one  people,  because  of  the  senseless  efforts 
that  were  continually  made,  by  harsh  laws,  to  keep  them 
apart.  Intermarriages,  foster-nursing,  use  of  the  Irish 
language,  observance  of  ancient  Irish  laws,  enjoyment  of 
Irish  sports  and  games,  had  all  been  prohibited,  with  no 
effect  except  to  keep  hatred  alive. 

By  the  measures  of  Henry  VII.,  these  falsities  and 
wrongs  were  more  lastingly  fixed.  Sir  Edward  Poynings, 
sent  as  Lord  Deputy  to  Ireland,  in  1494,.  extorted  from  a 
Parliament  held  in  the  English  Pale  two  acts  that  were 


262  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1509 

famous,  or  infamous,  in  later  Irish  history  as  the  "  Poyn- 
ino:s  Laws."  One  of  them  ordained  that  no  Parliament 
should  be  held  in  Ireland  until  the  king's  council  in  Eng- 
Poynings  ^^^^  ^^^  givcu  permission,  and  had  approved 
Laws.  jj^  advance   the   acts   proposed    to  be   passed. 

The  other  extended  to  Ireland  the  operation  of  all  Eng- 
lish laws  then  in  force.  Thus  even  the  English  in 
Ireland  were  paralyzed  politically,  and  kept  for  centuries 
in  that  helpless  state ;  while  law  after  law  was  contrived 
for  breaking  intercourse  between  them  and  their  ^'  wild 
Irish  "  neighbors  (so  called),  and  for  making  peace  impos- 
sible. 

126.  The  Last  Years  of  Henry  VII.  In  the  later 
years  of  his  reign,  Henry  became,  without  doubt,  one  of 
the  most  oppressive  extortioners  that  England  had  had 
among  her  kings.  He  had  shrewdly  avoided  laying  heavy 
burdens  of  general  taxation  on  the  country,  thinking  it 
safer  to  do  great  wrong  to  some  than  to  risk  the  discon- 
tenting of  all ;  but  he  seems  to  have  actually  revived 
some  of  the  worst  of  the  practices  of  the  past.  By  this 
despotism  he  made  himself  hateful  to  a  large  class  of  his 
subjects,  and  two  unscrupulous  lawyers,  Empson  and 
Dudley,  who  were  the  principal  agents  of  the  king  in 
collecting  "fines  for  fictitious  offences"  and  the  like, 
paid  with  their  lives,  after  their  master  died,  for  the 
indignation  they  had  helped  to  excite.  Henry  died  in 
April,  1 509,  at  the  age  of  fifty-two. 

127.  Henry  VIII.  Familiar  as  we  all  are  with  por- 
traits of  Henry  VIII.,  which  show  a  remarkable  grossness 
of  figure  and  face,  we  cannot  easily  picture  to  ourselves 
the  handsome  young  prince  that  he  is  said  to  have  been 
when  he  came  to  the  throne.  But  he  was  famed  abroad 
for  personal  comeliness,  and  equally  famed  for  the  ac- 
complishments he  possessed.      He   had   been   carefully 


I509-I5II] 


ARBITRARY    MONARCHY. 


263 


educated,  and  he  had  a  fairly  good  mind  ;  but  his  egotism, 
his  wilfuhiess,  and  his  selfishness  had  no  boundl.  Those 
traits  in  the  king  became  the  cause  of  infinite  suffering 
to  England;  but  his  subjects  were  so  filled  with  admira- 
tion of  his  stature,  his  strength,  his  fine  presence,  and 
the  bluff  freedom 
of  his  manner  to- 
ward them,  that 
they  were  quite 
heedless  of  his 
character  in  the 
first  years  of  his 
reign. 

One  of  Henry's 
first  acts  was  to 
marry  Katharine 
of  Aragon,  his  bro- 
ther's widow,  and 

First  mar-     ^"^^  ^^  ^^^^ 

nage.         ^Q     have 
done  so  less  from 
policy   than    from 
choice.    Katharine 
was      twenty-five, 
while  he  was  nine- 
teen, but  her  person  was  attractive  to  him  then,  and  her 
manners  pleased.     For  two  years  he  seems  to  have  been 
contented  with  the  enjoyments  of  a  gay  and  extravagant 
court.     Then  he  was  seized  with  the  ambition  to  play  a 
conspicuous  part  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.     An  iniquitous 
league  for  the  despoiling  of  Venice  had  been  followed  by 
what   was    styled   a    "Holy    League"    against  TheHoiy 
France,    formed    by  Ferdinand   of    Spain,    the  ^^^ague. 
Emperor  Maximilian,  and  the  pope.     Henry  was  easily 


HENRY    VIII. 


264        RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.     [1511-1513 


Flodden 
Field. 


drawn  into  the  League,  but  only  to  be  betrayed.  His 
allies  used  him  to  bring  pressure  on  France  for  secretly 
securing  their  own  terms  of  peace. 

Meantime,  while  Henry  was  making  war  in  France,  his 
Scottish  brother-in-law,  James  IV.,  acting  on  the  old 
friendship  of  Scotland  for  France,  invaded  England  and 
suffered  the  awful  defeat  of  Flodden  Field, 
where  he  and  10,000  of  his  countrymen  fell. 
This  brought  Henry's  nephew,  James  V.,  the  son  of  his 
sister  Margaret,  to  the  Scottish  throne. 

128.   Cardinal  Wolsey.     In  wrath,  on  discovering  the 
bad  faith  of  his  partners  in  the   Holy  League,  Henry 

changed  his  whole  pol- 
icy and  determined  on 
a  close  alliance  with 
France.  And  then  it 
was  that  Thomas  Wol- 
sey, who  had  been  a 
chaplain  at  court  for 
some  years,  and  lately 
the  king's  almoner, 
rose  to  leadership  in 
council  and  ministry. 
The  French  war  had 
given  Wolsey  an  op- 
portunity to  show  his 
varied  abilities,  and  es- 
peciallyhis  great  organ- 
izing power.  Henry, 
with  all  his  egotism, 
could  see  the  worth  of  such  a  servant,  and  he  was  willing 
that  the  livery  of  the  service  should  be  as  splendid  as 
Wolsey,  who  loved  magnificence,  could  desire.  There- 
fore Wolsey  became  the  managing  minister  of  the  king, 


THOMAS    WOLSEY. 


iSM-isi^']  ARBITRARY    MONARCHY.  265 

for  state  affairs  in  general,  but  particularly  in  the  diplo- 
matic field,  and  his  labors  were  rewarded  with  greater 
dignities  and  revenues  (in  church  offices  and  livings)  and 
a  prouder  state  than  any  English  minister  had  ever  en- 
joyed before.  But  in  Henry's  relations  with  his  minister 
there  is  no  sign  of  a  personal  friendship,  or  of  any  influ- 
ence that  ever  moved  his  egotistic  will.  Wolsey  was 
simply  his  magnificent  servant,  for  doing  in  a  splendid 
and  powerful  way  what  his  majesty  saw  fit  to  have  done. 

Wolsey  accomplished  the  alliance  which  Henry  desired. 
Louis  Xn.  of  France,  an  old  man,  broken  in  health,  hav- 
ing lately  become  a  widower  and  desiring  a  young  wife, 
was  offered  and  accepted  the  hand  of  Henry's  The  French 
younger  sister,  Mary,  a  charming  girl  of  seven-  ^i^^^^^^^- 
teen.  With  the  marriage  went  a  treaty  of  close  alliance, 
and  it  was  followed  by  negotiations  for  a  joint  attack  on 
Castile.  But  all  the  fine  scheming  was  thwarted  by  the 
death  (January,  15 15)  of  the  elderly  bridegroom,  three 
months  after  he  received  his  bride. 

Louis  XH.  was  succeeded  in  France  by  Francis  I.,  a 
young  man  of  twenty-four,  who  threw  himself  into  ambi- 
tious undertakings  of  war  with  a  dash  and  an  early  suc- 
cess that  kindled  jealousies  in  Henry's  breast.  For  some 
time  Wolsey's  diplomatic  skill  was  employed  in  secret 
intrigues  with  Swiss  mercenaries  and  with  the 

'^  .      .       Francis  I. 

emperor,  to  bring  about  attacks  on  Francis  m 
Milan,  which  England  should  pay  for  without  her  hand 
being  seen.  But  all  parties  in  the  business  were  cheat- 
ing one  another  in  a  knavish  game.  Wolsey,  during  this 
time,  was  made  cardinal  by  the  pope.  He  was  already 
Archbishop  of  York,  and  held  two  bishoprics  besides. 

129.  England  between  Charles  V.  and  Francis  I. 
In  1 5 16,  Ferdinand  of  Aragon  died,  and  his  grandson, 
Charles,  the  heir  of  many  realms,  Spanish,  Austrian,  and 


266  RENAISSANCE   AND   REFORMATION.  [I'sib-isao 

Burgundian,  then  came  on  the  European  stage.  Of 
other  potentates  in  Europe,  none  but  the  King  of  France 
could  pretend  to  rival  this  young  prince,  then  sixteen 
years  old.  England,  the  small  island  kingdom,  had  no 
weight  yet  that  could  go  into  the  scale  against  these  two. 
That  she  should  even  aspire  to  the  holding  of  the  scales 


ENGLISH    WARSHIP    WHICH    CONVEYED    HE^fRY    VIII.    TO 

FRANCE. 


between  them  was  a  daring  thought  ;  but  it  was  the 
thought  that  Wolsey  conceived  and  carried  out  with 
matchless  dexterity  and  success.  England  was  raised 
from  a  low  place  in  the  eyes  of  Europe  to  one  of  extraor- 
dinary height,  when  measured  by  h'er  true  national  rank 
and  power.  She  figured  as  the  arbiter  of  the  continent, 
and  was  regarded  for  a  few  years  as  the  keeper  of  the 
public  peace. 


1519-1522]  ARBITRARY   MONARCHY.  267 

Early  in  15 19,  Maximilian  died,  and  Charles  and  Fran- 
cis were  competing  candidates  for  the  imperial  crown. 
Henry,  too,  offered  his  name  to  the  electors  ;  but  hardly 
with  serious  hopes.  The  prize  fell  to  Charles,  and  in  his- 
tory he  is  known  best  by  the  most  sounding  of  his  many 
high  titles,  —  as  the  Emperor  Charles  V.  Henry  was 
now  courted  by  both  Francis  and  Charles,  and  his  inter- 
course with  them  was  so  managed  by  Wolsey  as  to  make 
a  profound  impression  on  the  public  mind.  In  May, 
.i!;20,  the  emperor  visited  him  in  England  ;  the 
next  month  Henry  and  the  King  of  France  had  of  the  three 

-  .  /-    1    •  1  monarchs. 

a  famous  meetmg  near  Calais,  at  a  place  so 
magnificently  prepared  that  it  was  known  as  "  The  Field 
of  the  Cloth  of  Gold;"  and  in  July  Charles  and  Henry 
had  a  second  interview  at  Calais.  The  great  cardinal 
was  a  figure  in  these  proceedings  as  distinguished  as  the 
kings,  and  both  Francis  and  Charles  offered  influence  in 
his  favor  at  the  next  election  of  pope.  The  parties  were 
playing  a  game  of  duplicity  all  round  ;  but  England,  her 
king,  and  her  cardinal  were  made  conspicuous  by  the 
game. 

130.  King-  Henry  against  Luther.  At  this  time, 
Henry  was  watching  with  anger  the  religious  agitation 
roused  in  Germany  by  Luther  ;  and,  when  a  tract  by 
Luther  on  ''  The  Babylonian  Captivity  of  the  Church  " 
appeared,  he  wrote  a  reply  to  it,  which  he  sent  in  sump- 
tuous binding  to  the  pope.  The  pope  in  return  praised 
the  king's  book  highly,  and  gave  him  the  title  of  "  De- 
fender of  the  Faith,"  which  he  accepted  with  great  pride. 

131.  Renewed  War  with  France.  In  1522,  England 
took  part  with  the  emperor  in  a  war  that  had  broken 
out  the  year  before  between  Francis  and  Charles.  Her 
part  was  inglorious,  and  she  had  no  profit  from  the 
war.     National  expenditure  had  risen  to  an  unparalleled 


268 


RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.  [1522-1527 


height ;  taxation  had  become  the  heaviest  and  arbitrary 
modes  of  raising  money  the  most  oppressive  ever  known. 
There  were  angry  mutterings  and  threatening  signs. 
Even  Henry,  who  tried  to  shut  his  eyes  to  everything 
that  crossed  his  will,  could  see  that  he  was  making  a 
failure  again  in  war,  and  Wolsey  began  to  manoeuvre 
for  a  changing  of  sides.  Decisive  reasons  for  the  change 
were  supplied  when  Francis  suffered  a  great  defeat  at 
Pavia  and  was  carried  prisoner  to  Spain.  Charles  was 
then  too  triumphant ;  Francis  was  so  helpless  that  he. 
was  willing  to  pay  heavily  for  Henry's  aid.  Wolsey 
wrung  from  the  latter,  accordingly,  two  millions  of 
crowns,  at  which  cost,  after  long  bargaining,  the  King 
of  France,  in  1527,  obtained  the  English  alliance,  which 
did  him  little  good. 

132.   Henry's  Wish    to  divorce    Queen    Katharine. 

Costly  and  profitless  as  the 
war  had  been,  the  French 
alliance  was  .hateful  to 
English  feeling  ;  and  Wol- 
sey, already  detested  by 
the  nobles  as  an  upstart, 
and  odious  to  the  people 
as  minister  of  the  king's 
oppressions,  became  the 
object  of  a  new  storm  of 
wrath.  Public  hostility 
could  matter  little,  so  long 
as  the  all-powerful  king 
stood  by  him  ;  but  that 
support  was  slipping  away. 
Certain  evil  desires  had 
arisen  in  Henry's  despotic  mind.  If  the  great  cardi- 
nal could  help  him  to  gratify  them,  well  and  good  ;  if 


ANNE    BOLEYN. 


1527-1530]  ARBITRARY    MONARCHY.  269 

not,  let  the  cardinal  beware.  The  king,  in  a  word,  had 
tired  of  liis  Spanish  wife,  whose  charms  were  ^nne 
fading ;  and  a  young  lady,  Anne  Boleyn,  had  ^^^^y^- 
lately  appeared  at  court,  who  pleased  his  eye.  It  came, 
therefore,  to  the  king's  mind,  after  eighteen  years  of 
marriage  with  his  good  wife  Katharine,  that  she  had 
been  his  brother's  widow  ;  that  his  union  with  her  was 
sinful,  because  forbidden  by  Holy  Writ ;  that  the  pope 
who  granted  a  dispensation  for  it  had  no  power  to  do  so  ; 
that  the  disapproval  of  Heaven  was  shown  in  the  fact 
that  no  son  born  to  Katharine  had  lived  ;  and  that,  there- 
fore, his  conscience  required  him  to  put  her  away. 

To  give  him  freedom  for  another  marriage,  he  demanded 
that  the  reigning  pope,  Clement  VH,,  should  annul  his 
predecessor's  dispensation  ;  and  Wolsey,  in  the  face  of 
the  fact  that  Katharine's  nephew,  the  emperor,  held  Pope 
Clement  in  his  power,  was  given  the  impossible  task  of 
bringing  this  about.  When  he  failed  (1529)  The  fan  of 
he  was  in  disgrace,  —  a  useless  servant,  cast  ^o^sey. 
off  and  thrown  out  to  his  many  enemies,  to  be  hunted 
down.  At  first  they  were  satisfied  to  strip  him  of  his 
offices  and  estates  ;  but  after  a  few  months  they  found 
pretexts  for  a  charge  of  treason,  and  the  king  ordered 
his  arrest.  Being  already  broken  in  health,  the  shock 
was  fatal,  and  the  great  cardinal  died  (November  29, 
1530)  on  the  journey,  as  a  prisoner,  to  London  from 
York. 

133.  The  Divorce.  —  The  King's  Marriage  to  Anne 
Boleyn.  Henry's  purpose  was  not  shaken  by  his  failure 
at  Rome.  If  the  pope  would  not  give  him  authority  to 
divorce  his  wife,  he  would  seek  authority  elsewhere.  On 
the  suggestion  of  one  of  his  chaplains,  Thomas  Cranmer, 
he  sent  agents  abroad  to  obtain  opinions  from  learned 
doctors  of  the  law,  against  the  validity  of  the  papal  dis- 


270        RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.     [1529-1532 

pensation  which  had  allowed  him,  in  1509,  to  marry  his 
brother's  widow.  By  more  or  less  bribery,  as  it  seems, 
the  desired  opinions  were  secured,  from  universities  in 
Italy  and  France,  while  Oxford  and  Cambridge  were 
forced  to  pronounce  to  the  same  effect. 

Armed  with  these  favorable  opinions,  the  king  bore 
down  all  resistance  at  home  to  what  he  desired  to  do. 
He  had  found  the  new  chief  servant  that  he  needed 
Thomas  ^^  ^uc  Thomas  Cromwell,  a  London  attorney, 
Cromwell,  ^^^lo  was  more  capable  than  Wolsey  for  the  work 
now  in  hand.  Cromwell  and  Cranmer  entered  into  the 
business  with  zeal ;  but  the  chancellor.  Sir  Thomas  More, 
one  of  the  purest,  noblest,  most  admirable  men  of  his 
age,  stood  aloof. 

In  1529,  an  obedient  Parliament  had  been  assembled 
—  the  first  in  six  years  —  packed  with  royal  servants, 
elected  at  command.  Its  main  business  was  to  intimi- 
date the  clergy  by  threatening  bills,  which  it  did  with 
such  effect  that  the  Convocation,  or  clerical  assembly  of 
the  church  in  England,  was  driven,  in  1531,  to  declare 
the  king  to  be  "  the  singular  protector  and  only  supreme 
The  king  govcmor  of  the  English  church,  and,  as  far  as 
heaiVf^the  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^  Christ  permits,  its  supreme  head." 
church.  ^  g^jjj  more  submissive  document  was  extorted 
from  the  leading  clergy  the  next  year.  The  situation 
had  then  become  one  which  impelled  Sir  Thomas  More 
to  withdraw  from  office,  and  he  resigned.  The  king  had 
professed  great  affection  for  More,  until  he  found  an 
immovable  conscience  underlying  the  sweet  nature  of 
the  man,  and  from  that  moment  the  honest  chancellor 
was  doomed. 

Henry's  projects  were  helped  at  this  juncture  by  the 
death  of  Archbishop  Warham  of  Canterbury,  who  had 
opposed   the  divorce.     Cranmer  was  made   archbishop  ; 


I533-I534]  ARBITRARY    MONARCHY.  271 

and  then,  feeling  sure  of  a  decree  at  home  that  could 
be  set  agamst  the  pope's,  Henry  was  secretly  married 
to  Anne  Boleyn  (January,  1533).  In  May,  cranmer's 
Cranmer,  as  primate,  held  an  ecclesiastical  court,  ^c*^°^- 
in  which  he  tried  the  question  of  the  king's  marriage  to 
Katharine  and  pronounced  it  void.  A  few  days  later,  he 
gave  a  second  decision,  which  sanctioned  the  marriage 
to  Anne,  and  she  was  publicly  crowned  as  queen. 

134.  The  Separation  of  the  Church  of  England  from 
Rome.  In  March,  1534,  the- final  sentence  of  Rome  was 
pronounced  by  Pope  Clement,  declaring  Katharine  to  be 
Henry's  legitimate  wife.  Before  this  was  known  in  Eng- 
land, the  king  had  begun  to  take  steps  for  casting  off 
the  authority  of  the  Roman  pontiff,  making  the  church 
in  England  an  independent  church,  in  order  to  place  his 
divorce  and  re-marriage  under  cover  of  English  law.  By 
successive  acts  of  Parliament,  every  kind  of  payment 
hitherto  made  to  the  Roman  See  was  stopped  ;  every 
species  of  license  and  dispensation  formerly  obtained 
from  the  pope  was  forbidden;  the  king's  first  The  Act  of 
marriage  was  declared  void,  while  that  with  succession. 
Anne  was  affirmed,  and  a  daughter,  Elizabeth,  lately 
born  to  Anne,  was  recognized  as  the  true  heir  to  the 
crown.  To  refuse  acceptance  by  oath  to  this  last-named 
act,  or  to  speak  against  it,  or  to  use  words  denying  the 
titles  of  the  king,  the  new  queen,  or  their  heirs,  or  to 
refuse  to  acknowledge  the  king  as  being  "  the  Supreme 
Head  in  Earth  of  the  Church  of  England,"  were  made 
treasonable  crimes,  punishable  with  death. 

135.  The  Feeling  of  the  English  People.  The  scan- 
dalous business  of  the  king's  divorce  and  second  marriage 
was  plainly  hateful  to  all  classes  of  his  subjects,  for 
they  lost  no  opportunity  to  manifest  their  sympathy 
with  Queen  Katharine  and  her  daughter  Mary,  and  their 


2/2        RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.     [1534-1535 


dislike  and  scorn  of  Anne  Boleyn.  But  the  feeling  with 
which  they  saw  their  church  severed  from  Rome  is  less 
certainly  known.  There  is  little  evidence  at  this  time 
of  any  widespread  revolt  of  religious  opinion  or  feeling 
in  England  against  the  papacy  or  the  papal  church,  like 
that  which  swept  Germany  and  other  parts  of  the  conti- 
nent into  the  movement  of  the  Protestant  Reformation. 

Apparently,  in  fact, 
there  was  less  of  a  re- 
ligious agitation  in  the 
English  mind  during 
these  days  than  there 
had  been  in  Wiclif's 
time ;  and  the  coun- 
try at  large  would 
seem  to  have  been  less 
prepared  than  then  for 
a  movement  of  separa- 
tion from  the  Roman 
church,  so  far  as  mo- 
tives from  religious 
feeling  or  opinion  are 
concerned.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  had  been  so  long  a  habit  in  England 
of  resisting  papal  exactions  and  disputing  papal  claims 
that  the  idea  of  separation  may  easily  have  been  received 
with  no  general  shock. 

136.  Execution  of  More,  Fisher,  and  others.  But, 
whatever  the  feeling  of  the  country  may  have  been,  it 
was  not  consulted  by  the  arrogant  king.  Much  or  little 
as  there  may  have  been  of  a  Reformation  spirit  in  the 
country,  he  made  no  concessions  to  it,  accepted  no  sup- 
port from  it.  His  purpose  was  not  to  rid  England  of 
papacy,  but  to  set  up  a  papacy  or  pontificate  of  his  own, 


SIR    THOMAS    MORE. 


1535-1536]  ARBITRARY   MONARCHY.  2^1 

in  the  place  of  that  of  the  Bishop  of  Rome.  He  intended 
to  be,  for  England,  both  pope  and  king.  The  Lollard  and 
the  Lutheran  were  rebels  against  his  supremacy  as  much 
as  against  that  of  the  Roman  pope,  and  he  pursued  them 
with  rope  and  brand.  Every  kind  of  difference  with 
the  despot  had  become  a  deadly  crime.      Sir 

^  1111        Execution 

Thomas  More,  whom  all  men  loved,  and  the  of  More 
good  Bishop  of  Rochester,  John  Fisher,  who 
was  venerated  by  all,  went  to  the  scaffold  (1535)  because 
they  could  not,  by  oath,  give  approval  to  the  divorce. 
One  John  Frith  was  burned  for  holding  a  Protestant  view 
of  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  while  three  Car- 
thusian monks  were  hung  and  quartered  for  denying 
the  king's  headship  in  the  church.  And  the  ferocity 
of  the  tyrant  was  not  yet  half  roused. 

137.  Execution  of  Anne  Boleyn.  —  Henry's  Third 
Marriage.  In  January,  1536,  the  divorced  Queen  Kath- 
arine   died,   and    by  her   death    she    seems    to 

■'  .  Death  of 

have  doomed  her  rival,  Anne.  The  king  had  Queen 
been  tiring  of  the  latter  for  some  time,  but 
feared  to  reopen  the  old  divorce  question  if  he  tried  to 
make  himself  wifeless  again.  But  no  sooner  was  Kath- 
arine out  of  the  way  than  he  determined  to  be  rid  of 
Anne  Boleyn,  and  his  creature,  Thomas  Cromwell,  lost 
no  time  in  finding  the  means.  On  charges  of  misconduct 
and  of  conspiracy,  which  few  who  have  investigated  the 
matter  give  credit  to  in  the  least,  she  was  condemned 
and  beheaded  (May,  1536),  while  five  unfortunate  gentle- 
men, accused  of  complicity  in  her  crime,  shared  her  fate. 
Henry  married  his  third  wife,  Jane  Seymour,  on  the  day 
after  Anne's  head  fell. 

138.  Suppression  of  the  Monasteries.  The  minister 
chosen  by  the  king  for  the  exercise  of  his  new  spiritual 
powers,   as  Supreme  Head  of  the  church,  was  no  man 


2/4        RENAISSANCE   AND   REFORMATION.     [1537-1547 

of  piety,  —  no  clergyman  even,  —  but  the  unscrupulous 
attorney,  Thomas  Cromwell,  whom  he  appointed  to  be 
''  vicar-general,"  and  who  proceeded  with  instant  zeal 
to  "  reform  "  the  church  by  seizing  its  wealth.  That 
many  of  the  monasteries  misused  the  vast  wealth  that 
they  held  in  trust,  and  that  their  usefulness,  for  the 
most  part,  was  being  lost,  is  hardly  open  to  doubt ;  but 
it  is  equally  beyond  doubt  that  public  interests  and  moral 
considerations  had  little  to  do  with  Cromwell's  proceed- 
ings against  them. 

His  first  "  visitation  "  and  report  led  to  an  act  of  Par- 
liament, in  1536,  which  dissolved  about  380  of  the  smaller 
communities,  and  placed  their  property  at  the  disposal  of 
the  king.     This  measure  was  one  of  the  causes  of  a  re- 
volt,  that  year,  in  the  north,  which  bore  the 

The  Pil-  . 

grimageof  singular  name  of  "The  Pilgrimage  of  Grace." 
It  was  an  unsuccessful  rising,  but  it  furnished 
a  pretext  for  making  the  overthrow  of  monasteries  com- 
plete, and  that  work  was  accomplished  during  the  next 
three  years.  Besides  the  monasteries,  which  seem  to 
have  exceeded  600  in  number,  more  than  2000  chantries, 
or  endowed  chapels,  and  numerous  allied  institutions,  were 
suppressed.  The  land  acquired  by  the  king  from  these 
suppressions  was  enormous  in  extent,  while  the 
jewels,  the  gold,  and  the  plate  taken  from  them 
and  from  the  shrines  of  saints,  which  were  stripped  soon 
after,  represented  an  incalculable  spoil,  mostly  sei-zed  to 
be  squandered  by  the  king.  "  During  the  last  eight  years 
of  his  life  he  [the  king]  gave  away  about  420  monasteries 
Division  of  ^^  ^^^^^  of  monasteries.  .  .  .  His  bounty  was 
the  spoils.  ^Q^  bestowed,  it  must  be  confessed,  according 
to  public  virtue  or  service  ;  the  palace  got  much  of  it  ; 
every  cook  who  could  please  his  palate  with  a  dish,  every 
ruffler  who  spread  a  finer  cloak  before  his  eyes,  might 


1536-1539]  ARBITRARY    MONARCHY.  275 

look  to  have.  His  gaming  debts  are  said  to  have  made 
away  with  a  great  deal ;  and,  besides  the  creatures  of  the 
palace,  there  were  land-jobbers  and  blood-suckers  of  every 
kind."  1 

The  confiscation  of  the  property  of  the  monasteries 
was  followed,  in  1545,  by  a  statute  which  placed  at  the 
disposal  of  the  king  "  the  property  of  all  col- 

1  r  •    •         1  1        1  1  1      -1  1     >j  1    I>angrer  to 

leges,  traternities,  brotherhoods,  and  gilds,    and  universi- 
it  is  the  opinion  of  some   historians  that  ''  the 
universities,    with    all    their  colleges,   would  have  been 
swept  into  the  all-devouring  exchequer"  if  Henry  had 
not  died  when  he  did. 

139.  The  Ten  Articles  and  the  Six  Articles  of  Pre- 
scribed Belief.  In  1 536,  Henry's  subjects  were  definitely 
told  what  they  might  and  what  they  might  not  believe,  in 
religious  matters,  by  the  publication  of  a  manual  of  Ten 
Articles,  originally  drafted  by  the  royal  hand.  In  these 
articles,  says  Mr.  Froude,  ''  the  principles  of  the  two  re- 
ligions [Catholic  and  Protestant]  are  seen  linked  together 
in  connection,  yet  without  combination."  They  "  were 
debated  in  convocation,  and  passed  because  it  was  the 
king's  will.  No  party  were  pleased."  Nevertheless, 
"  they  were  sent  round  through  the  English  counties,  to 
be  obeyed  by  every  man  at  his  peril."  ^ 

Only  for  three  years,  however,  did  this  kingly  mix- 
ture of  Roman  and  Protestant  doctrine  represent  the 
permitted  beliefs  of  Englishmen.  Then  their  spiritual 
dictator,  having  had  an  angry  dispute  with  some  German 
theologians,  turned  sharply  against  the  reform-  The  six 
ing  creeds  and  issued  a  new  edict  of  Six  Arti-  ^^^^cies. 
cles,  which  restored  the  Roman  faith  substantially 
complete.     These  articles  were  embodied  in  an  act  of 

1  Dixon,  ///>/.  of  the  CJnn-ch  of  England^  ch.  x. 

2  Froude,  Hist,  of  Eng.^  ch.  xii. 


2^6        RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.     [1538-1539 


Parliament,  with  death  penalties  prescribed  that  were 
brutal  in  the  extreme.  The  sufferers  in  the  persecution 
that  followed  are  said  to  have  been  "  a  very  considerable 
number." 

140.  Reginald  Pole  and  his  Family.  In  1538,  Regi- 
nald Pole,  a  cardinal  at  Rome,  whose  mother,  the  Count- 
ess of  Salisbury,  was  the  niece  of  Edward  IV.,  attacked 

Henry  in  a  book,  "  On 
the  Unity  of  the 
Church."  The  pope 
(Paul  III.)  soon  after- 
wards issued  a  Bull  of 
Deposition,  which  he 
had  held  back  for  three 
years,  commanding 
Henry's  subjects  in 
England  to  recognize 
him  no  longer  as  king. 
There  were  many,  no 
doubt,  in  England,  who 
welcomed  both  the 
book  and  the  bull  ;  but 
no  movement  among  them  is  shown  to  have  occurred. 
Nevertheless,  three  of  the  near  relatives  of  the  cardinal 
were  promptly  put  to  death,  and,  after  an  interval,  the 
gray  head  of  his  mother,  the  Countess  of  Salisbury,  was 
delivered  to  the  executioner's  axe. 

141.  Henry's  Fourth  and  Fifth  Marriages.  —  The 
Fall  of  Crorawell.  —  Execution  of  Katharine  Howard. 
In  1537,  Henry's  third  wife,  Jane  Seymour,  had  given 
birth  to  a  son,  but  died  soon  after.  He  remained  a  wid- 
ower for  two  years,  and  was  then  persuaded  by  Cromwell 
to  marry  a  German  princess,  Anne  of  Cleves,  as  a  step 
towards    allying   himself   with    the    Protestant    German 


THOMAS    CROMWELL. 


1534-1540]  ARBITRARY   MONARCHY.  277 

states  ;  but  when  the  poor  princess  arrived  she  did  not 
please  him,  and  was  divorced  almost  as  soon  as  wed.  A 
fifth  wife,  Katharine  Howard,  was  then  taken  by  the 
king  from  his  own  court.  He  was  angry  at  his  disap- 
pointment with  Anne  of  Cleves,  and  characteristically 
turned  his  anger  against  the  man  who  had  suggested  the 
unsatisfactory  match.  Cromwell's  unfaltering  services  in 
the  past  could  not  save  him  from  his  master's  present 
wrath.  Arrested  on  a  charge  of  treason,  he  was  con- 
demned without  a  hearing,  by  bill  of  attainder  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  hurried  to  the  block.  Before  the  year  (1540) 
ended,  Henry  had  discovered  misdoings  in  Katharine 
Howard  and  sent  her  to  the  same  death. 

142.  Ireland  and  Wales.  A  rebellion  in  Ireland,  in 
1534,  led  to  measures  there  which  more  nearly  accom- 
plished the  subjugation  of  the  island  than  any  that  had 
gone  before  ;  and  Henry,  not  satisfied  with  being  styled 
Lord  of  Ireland,  as  his  predecessors  had  been,  took  the 
title  of  King.  He  created  an  Irish  peerage,  and  by 
distributing  earldoms  among  the  turbulent  chiefs,  and 
giving  them  a  share  in  the  pillage  of  Irish  monasteries, 
he  sought  to  reconcile  them  to  the  English  rule.  But 
he  more  than  spoiled  the  effect  of  this  policy  by  roughly 
attempting  to  force  upon  the  Irish  people  his  recon- 
structed church.  Their  previous  attachment  to  Rome 
and  the  pope  had  been  very  slight ;  but  this  made  it  pas- 
sionately strong,  and  raised  the  most  lasting  of  all  bars 
to  a  union  between  the  English  and  themselves. 

Wales  was  more  wisely  dealt  with  in   Henry's  reign, 
by  being  finally  incorporated  into  the  English 
kingdom,  with  parliamentary  representation. 

143.  Scotland.  Henry  made  repeated  efforts,  without 
success,  to  persuade  his  nephew,  the  young  king  of  Scot- 
land, James  V.,  to  follow  his  example  in  dealing  with  the 


2/8        RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.     [1537-1546 

church.  He  could  not  overcome  the  French  influence 
at  the  Scottish  court,  which  was  increased,  in  1538,  by 
the  marriage  of  James  to  a  French  princess,  Mary  of 
Guise.  At  length,  Henry,  in  1542,  revived  the  old  claim 
of  supremacy  for  the  English  crown  over  the  Scottish,  and 
began  war.  A  Scottish  army,  entering  Cumberland,  was 
disgracefully  routed  at  Solway  Moss,  and  King  James 
was  so  affected  by  the  disaster  that  he  died  soon  after. 
A  few  days  before  his  death,  news  came  to  him  that  his 
queen  had  given  birth  to  a  daughter.  The  daughter 
was  that  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots  from  her  infancy,  whose 
tragical  story  is  known  to  all  the  world. 

Attempts  to  make  peace,  on  the  basis  of  a  betrothal 

of  the  infant  Oueen  of  Scots  to  Prince  Edward  of  Ens:- 

land,  were  defeated  by  the  French  party  in   Scotland, 

led  by  Cardinal  Beaton,  a  bold  and  able  man. 

AUiance 

with  Henry  went  again  into  alliance  with  the  Em- 

Charles  V.  r^-,       ^  1  •     i  r      •>! 

peror  Charles,  and  carried  on  a  iruitless  war  m 
both  Scotland  and  France  for  the  next  two  years,  burn- 
ing Edinburgh  and  taking  Boulogne,  but  getting  no  ad- 
vantage from  either  exploit. 

144.  The  Last  Days  of  Henry  VIII.  Peace  was  made 
with  France  and  Scotland  in  1546,  and  near  the  end  of 
that  year  the  king,  already  diseased,  and  too  gross  in  body 
to  support  his  own  weight,  became  seriously  ill.  He  was 
still  capable,  however,  of  taking  one  more  life.  The 
aged  Duke  of  Norfolk,  and  Norfolk's  son,  the  Earl  of 
Surrey,  had  been  faithful  supporters  of  his  throne  ;  but 
they  were  unfriendly  to  the  relatives  of  Jane  Seymour, 
Henry's  third  wife  and  mother  of  his  son  and  heir.  The 
Seymours  wished  to  be  rid  of  them,  and  easily  persuaded 
the  dying  tyrant  to  have  charges  of  high  treason  brought 
against  both.  Surrey,  the  most  graceful  poet  of  his  time, 
was  hurried  to  the  block;  his  father  was  saved  by  the 


1509-1547]  ARBITRARY    MONARCHY.  279 

timely  death  of  the  king.  Norfolk  was  to  have  been 
beheaded  on  the  morning  of  January  28,  1547  ;  the  king 
died  on  the  night  of  January  27. 

Henry  had  married  a  sixth  wife,   Katharine   Parr  by 
name,  in   1543.      She  had  no  children.     The  family  left 
by  him    consisted    of    Mary,  the    daughter   of  Henry's 
Katharine  of  Aragon,  Elizabeth,  the  daughter  ^^^^^^• 
of  Anne   Boleyn,  and  Edward,  who  was  Jane  Seymour's 
son.     Edward  succeeded  his  father,  being  ten  years  old. 

145.  Learning  and  Literature.  The  ''  New  Learn- 
ing," as  it  was  called,  of  the  Renaissance,  — the  learning 
and  thinking  that  were  inspired  by  study  of  Greek  and 
Latin  literatures,  by  study  of  the  Bible  in  its  original 
tongues,  and  by  observation  of  man  and  the  world  as  they 
are,  —  had  entered  England  before  Henry  VHL  came  to 
the  throne,  and  good  seed  from  it  was  sown  in  the  early 
years  of  his  reign,  by  such  teachers  and  scholars  as  John 
Colet  and  Sir  Thomas  More  ;  but  it  was  chilled  by  his 
blighting  despotism,  and  had  no  wholesome  growth  while 
he  lived.  If  we  take  out  of  the  literature  of  his  reign 
the  "  Utopia  "  of  More  and  the  poems  of  Surrey,  both 
of  them  murdered  victims  of  the  king,  there  is  little  left 
that  deserves  to  be  named. 

The  licensing  of  four  publications  of  the  Bible  in  the 
English  language  is  one  redeeming  act  to  be  credited 
to  Henry  VHL  He  had  hunted  Tyndale,  the  translator 
of  the  Bible,  to  death,  in  the  Netherlands,  caus-  ^j^g  ^ 
ing  him  to  be  strangled  and  burned  (1536),  ^^shBibie. 
before  it  occurred  to  his  infallible  mind  that  the  Bible 
might  be  a  serviceable  weapon  against  the  pope.  Moved 
by  that  idea,  he  then  suffered  a  number  of  successive 
revisions  of  the  translation  to  be  printed  and  sold. 

146.  The  Economic  Condition  of  England.  It  is  the 
opinion  of  the  economic  historian.  Professor  Rogers,  that 


28o  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1547 

Henry  VIII.  wrecked  the  prosperity  of  England  during 
most  of  his  reign.  ''His  rapacity  and  waste,"  says  the 
professor,  "  were  immeasurable  and  all-devouring."  The 
towns  suffered  with  the  countr}^,  and  their  decline  be- 
tween 15 15  and  1544  is  a  well-marked  fact.^ 

Nothing  else  that  Henry  did  wrought,  probably,  such 
great  and  lasting  misery  as  the  debasement  of  the  cur- 
rency which  he  j^ersistently  carried  on,  and  which   his 
successor  continued,  until  the  EnHish  shilling: 

Debase-  .  .  o  & 

mentofthe  piccc,  in  1 55  I,  Contained  less  than  one  seventh 
cur  e  cy.     ^^  ^^^^  silver  that  had   been  in   the  shilling  of 

1527.  This  was  royal  robbery  of  the  poor  on  an  infa- 
mous scale.  Prices  generally  were  raised  more  than 
100  per  cent.,  while  wages  rose  but  50. 

One  cause  of  suffering  to  a  large  class,  for  which  the 

king  was  not  responsible,  was  an  increasing  abandonment 

of  crop  culture  for  sheep-raising,  which  turned 

Decline  of     .  ^  r  -,  1       1        i     • 

agricui-  large  areas  01  arable  land  mto  pasture,  and 
tended  to  the  inclosure  of  commons  and  open 
fields.  This  threw  many  out  of  agricultural  employment, 
and  benefited  the  greater  landowners  at  the  expense  of 
the  yeomanry  and  the  farming  class. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

119.  The  Opening  of  the  Modern  Era. 
Topics. 

1.  Change  in  society,  trade  organization,  and  religious  life. 

2.  Reaction  in  political  life. 

References. —  Colby,  129-133;  Traill,  ii.  441-443,  iii.  131-144. 
153-167  ;   Rogers,  ch.  xii. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  churchman  did  Henry  VII. 
appoint  to  ofifice  under  him  ?  (Traill,  ii.  464.)  (2.)  Heniy's  ap- 
pointment led  to  what  power  ovei  the  monasteries  ?  (Guest, 
3^7-)  (3-)  What  was  found  to  be  their  condition  ?  (Guest,  387; 
Traill,  ii.  467,  474,  475.) 

^  Rogers,  History  of  Agriailtui-e  and  Prices,  vol.  iv.  ch.  iii. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    (QUESTIONS.     281 

120.  King  and  Parliament  under  Henry  VII. 

Topics. 

1.  Henry  a  constitutional  monarch. 

2.  Lack  of  spirit  in  the  Parliament. 
Reference. —  Gairdner,  Henry  VII.,  ch.  xiii. 

121.  Strong  Government. 
Topics. 

1.  Henry's  duties. 

2.  His  character  and  policy. 

3.  His  action  against  livery  and  maintenance. 
References.  —  Montague,    92-104 ;    Traill,   ii.   452-464.     Star 

Chamber:  Gardiner,  i.  348;  Bright,  ii.  359;  Green,  302,  303. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  was  Henry's  attitude  toward 
the  enforcement  of  the  law  ?     (Guest,  375,  376.)    (2.)  What  was 
the  value  to  England  of  the  Tudor  policy  ? 

122.  Insurrections  and  Pretenders. 
Topics. 

1.  Satisfaction  with  Henry. 

2.  Lambert  Simnel :  a,  his  pretensions ;  A,  disposal  by  Henry. 

3.  Perkin  Warbeck  :  a,  his  role  ;  d,  raid  from  Scotland  ;  c,  exe- 

cution. 
Reference. —  Gairdner,  Henry  VII.,  chs.  iv.,  vii. 

123.  Foreign  Affairs. 
Topics. 

1.  Henry  and  the  league  against  France. 

2.  Marriages  of  the  royal  family. 
Reference.  —  Gairdner,  Henry  VII.,  chs.  ix.,  xi. 

124.   Commerce  and  Discovery. 

Topics. 

1.  Henry's  interest  in  English  trade. 

2.  Henry  and  Bartholomew  Columbus. 

3.  Henry  and  John  Cabot. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  i.  356;  Moberly,  y6,  77;  Traill,  ii.  496- 

498;  Colby,  133-135- 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Where  did  the  English  do  most  of 
their  trading  on  the  continent  ?   (2.)  If  other  nations  traded  there, 
what   would    be    the    condition   of  the   money?     (3.)  What  are 


282  ARBITRARY   MONARCHY. 

money-changers?  (4.)  What  modern  institution  sprang  out  of 
money  changing  and  hoarding?  (5.)  Where  was  the  first  Eu- 
ropean bank  founded  ?  (6.)  Name  all  the  voyages  made  to  Amer- 
ica during  this  reign,  and  show  the  lands  explored. 

125.  Ireland. 

Topics. 

1.  Henry's  foolish  policy  with  Ireland. 

2.  Poynings  Laws  :  a^  their  content ;  b^  their  effect. 
Reference.  —  Gairdner,  Henry  VII.,  ch.  viii. 

126.  The  Last  Years  of  Henry  VII. 

Topics. 

I   His  methods  of  extortion  and  his  agents. 
2.  His  death. 

Reference.  —  Gardiner,  i.  357,  358. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Describe  the  operation  of  '*  Mor- 
ton's Fork."  (Guest,  375.)  (2.)  Why  did  Henry  use  these 
methods  of  getting  money  instead  of  parliamentary  grants  ?  (3.) 
In  what  position  toward  his  Parliament  did  his  wealth  place  him  ? 
(4.)  What  other  circumstance  increased  Henry's  absolutism  ? 
(Taswell-Langmead,  366.) 

127.  Henry  VIII. 
Topics. 

1.  Henry's  early  qualities. 

2.  His  marriage  and  part  in  continental  affairs. 

3.  Battle  of  Flodden  Field. 

References.  —  Moberly,  ch.  viii.;  Colby,  137-139. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  With  what  feehng  toward  his  peo- 
ple did  Henry  begin  his  reign?  (Gardiner,  ii.  361.)  (2.)  How 
did  he  feel  toward  men  of  learning?  (Green,  310;  Moberly, 
no,  in;  Guest,  391.)  (3.)  How  was  he  disposed  toward  the 
navy?  (Moberly,  103,  108,  109,  206.)  (4.)  What  policy  of  his 
father's  did  he  follow  out  ?  (Moberly,  106.)  (5.)  What  feeling 
for  the  papacy  did  he  hold  in  his  early  years  ?     (Moberly,  114.) 

128.  Cardinal  Wolsey. 
Topics. 

1.  Wolsey's  services  and  his  magnificence. 

2.  The  alliance  with  France. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND    QUESTIONS.      283 

3.  Henry's  intrigues  against  France  and  Wolsey's  promotion. 
References.  —  Gardiner,   ii.   363-366,369-384;   Bright,  ii.  375- 

386;  Green,   320-331  ;  Aioberly,  136-150,   156-167;  Creighton's 

Cardinal  Wolsey ;  Guest,  393-399  ;  Colby,  137-142, 
Research    Questions. — (i.)   What    was   Wolsey's    ambition? 

(Moberly,  137.)    (2.)  What   were  his  conspicuous  talents?    (3.) 

Tell  of  his  splendor.     (Moberly,  138.) 

129.  England  between  Charles  V.  and  Francis  I. 
Topics. 

1.  Charles  V.'s  territory  and  England's  increased  importance. 

2.  The  competition  for  the  imperial  crown. 

3.  Henry  courted  by  Charles  and  Francis. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  377,  378. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Point  out  on  the  map  the  posses- 
sions of  Charles  V.  (2.)  Give  some  of  the  most  striking  fea- 
tures of  the  Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  (Creighton,  Cardinal 
Wolsey,  ch.  iv.) 

130.  King  Henry  against  Luther. 
Topic. 

I.  Henry  as  the  defender  of  the  faith. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  377-379;  Green,  320,  321  ;  Moberly, 
150-156  ;  Traill,  iii.  34-54. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  was  Luthers  early  attitude 
toward  Rome?  (Moberly,  154.)  (2.)  Compare  his  doctrines  at 
this  time  with  those  of  W^iclif.  (Green,  239.)  (3.)  "  The  Baby- 
lonish Captivity"  and  Henry's  reply.     (Moberly,  155.) 

131.  Renewed  War  with  France. 
Topics. 

1.  England's  part  and  Charles's  success, 

2.  Wolsey  sells  the  English  alliance  to  France. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  369-372. 

132.     Henry's  Wish  to  divorce  Queen  Katharine. 
Topics. 

1.  Hostility  to  Wolsey  on  the  part  of  the  people. 

2.  The  king's  desire  for  a  divorce. 

3.  Wolsey's  failure  with  the  pope  and  his  fall. 
Reference.  —  Moberly,  156-167. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  were  some  of  the  reasons  for 


284  ARBITRARY    MONARCHY. 

Wolsey's  unpopularity  with  the  people  and  with  the  king  ?  (Mo- 
berly,  148,  158;  Gardiner,  ii.  372.)  (2.)  What  effect  upon  Parlia- 
ment did  the  fall  of  the  powerful  minister  have  ?  (Ransome,  106, 
107.) 

133.  The   Divorce.  —  The   King's   Marriage  to  Anne 

Boleyn. 

Topics. 

1.  Cranmer's  and  Cromwell's  assistance;  More's  opposition. 

2.  Henry  declared  the  head  of  the  English  church. 

3.  Cranmer   as   Archbishop    of    Canterbury   sanctions    Henry's 

marriage. 

Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii,  385-389. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  was  Parliament's  control  over 
taxation  in  the  reign  of  the  Tudors  shaken  ?  (2.)  How  did  Henry 
Vin.  get  money?  (Montague,  95,  96.)  (3.)  What  difference  be- 
tween the  attitude  of  Henry  VII.  toward  Parliament  and  that  of 
Henry  VIII..?  (Gardiner,  ii.  385.)  (4.)  What  force  did  Parha- 
ment  give  to  Henry's  proclamations  ?  (Montague,  98.)  (5.) 
What  was  the  effect  of  this  upon  their  own  power  ? 

134.  The  Separation  of  the  Church  of  England  from 

Rome. 

Topics. 

1.  Sentence  of  the  pope  and  his  authority  cast  off. 

2.  Punishment  for  refusal  to  accept  the  Act  of  Succession. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  374-391.     Acts  of   treason  and  su- 
premacy :  Gardiner,  ii.  392,  393 ;  Bright,  ii.   395 ;  H.  Taylor,  ii. 

IS.  76. 

135.  The  Feeling  of  the  English  People. 
Topic. 

I.  Feeling:  a,  toward  the  king  ;  b,  toward  the  church. 
Reference.  —  Moberly,  170-178. 

136.  Execution  of  More,  Fisher,  and  others. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king's  purpose. 

2.  His  opposition  to  pope  and  reformers  and  his  executions. 
References.  —  Moberly,  182-184.     Sir  Thomas  More  :   Moberly, 

387,388;  (;reen,  314-316;  Guest,  392. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    (2UESTI0NS.      285 

137.    Execution    of    Anne    Boleyn.  —  Henry's    Third 

Marriage. 
Topics.  , 

1.  Death  of  Katharine  and  charges  against  Anne. 

2.  IMarriasre  with  Jane  Seymour. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  398-400. 

138.  Suppression  of  the  Monasteries. 

Topics. 

1.  Thomas  Cromwell  as  vicar-general. 

2.  Dissolution  of  the  smaller  communities. 

3.  The  Pilgrimage  of  Grace   and  overthrow  of  clerical  institu 

tions. 

4.  The  plunder  taken  by  the  king  and  his  use  of  it. 

5.  Further  legislation  against  colleges,  fraternities,  etc. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  394,  397-400;  Bright,  ii.  410,411; 

Green,  338,  339;  Colby,  147-150;  Moberly,  187-200;  Traill,  iii. 
54-65;  Gibbins,  83-85 ;  Taswell-Langmead,  431-436. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  famous  shrine  did  Henry 
strip  ?  (Guest,  410,  411.)  (2.)  Trace  Henry's  growing  opposition 
to  the  church.  (Moberly,  192.)  (3.)  What  did  he  do  for  the 
Bible  ?  (4.)  How  would  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries  raise 
up  defenders  for  the  reformation?     (Montague,  94.) 

139.  The  Ten  Articles  and  the   Six  Articles  of  Pre- 
scribed Belief. 
Topics. 

1.  Content  of  the  Ten  Articles. 

2.  Restoration  of  the  Roman  faith  in  the  Six  Articles. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  395-400:  Bright,  ii.  412. 

140.  Reginald.  Pole  and  his  Family. 

Topics. 

1.  Pole's  attack  upon  Henry,  and  the  pope's  bull. 

2.  Henry's  revenge. 
Reference.  —  Green,  346,  347. 

141.  Henry's  Fourth  and  Fifth  Marriages.  —  The  Fall 
of  Cromwell.  —  Execution  of  Katharine  Howard. 

Topics. 

I.  Anne  of  Cleves  and  Katharine  Howard. 


286  ARBITRARY    MONARCHY. 

2.  Execution  of  Cromwell  and  Katharine  Howard. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  412-415. 

142.  Ireland  and  Wales. 
Topics. 

1.  Creation  of  Irish  peerage. 

2.  Results  of  his  attempt  to  reconstruct  the  Irish  church. 

3.  Incorporation  of  Wales. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  401-404. 

143.  Scotland. 
Topics. 

1.  Henry's  attempts  to  influence  James. 

2.  Battle  of  Solway  Moss  and  birth  of  Mary,  (2ueen  of  Scots. 

3.  Attempts  at  peace  and  new  alliance  with  Charles  V. 
Reference. —  Gardiner,  ii.  404-409. 

144.  The  Last  Days  of  Henry  VIII. 
Topics. 

1.  Last  days  of  the  king. 

2.  Execution  of  Surrey. 

3.  Family  left  by  Henry. 
Reference.  —  Moberly,  231-235. 

145.  Literature  and  Learning. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Renaissance  in  England. 

2.  Henry  and  the  Bible. 

References.  —  The  new  learning:  Gardiner,  ii.  366-36S;  Mo- 
berly, 79-94;  Green,  303,  304,  320;  Colby,  135-137;  Traill,  iii. 
85-98.  Erasmus:  Guest,  388-390;  Green,  305-316;  Traill,  iii. 
86-89. 

146.  The  Economic  Condition  of  England. 

Topics 

1.  Effect  of  Henry's  reign  on  England. 

2.  Debasement  of  the  coinage  and  increase  in  sheep-raising. 
References. —  Trade  and  industries:  Gibbins,  82-99;  Cunning- 
ham and  McArthur,  66-68;  Bright,  ii.  467-472;  Moberly,  122- 
130;  Green,  326,  327  ;  Traill,  iii.  114-131  ;  Rogers,  chs.  xi.,  xii. 
Debasement  of  the  coinage :  Gibbins,  85 ;  Cunningham  and 
McArthur,  142-146;  Traill,  iii.  124-126;  Rogers,  342,  343. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 


PROTESTANT  REFORMATION  AND  CATHOLIC  REACTION. 

Tudor  Sovereigns:  Edward  VI.  —  Mary.     1547-1558. 

147.  Edward  VI.  and  the  Protector  Somerset.     A 

boy-king  was  once  more  on  the  EngHsh  throne.  Author- 
ized by  Parhament,  his  father  had  left  a  will  which  ap- 
pointed a  council  of  regency  to  administer  government 


EDWARD    VI.    AND    COUNCIL. 


in  Edward's  name  until  he  should  be  eighteen  years  old. 
A  majority  of  the  council  were  "men  of  the  new  learn- 
ing," so  called,  who  favored  much  more  of  a  change  and 


288       RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.     [1547-1548 

reformation  in  the  church  than  mere  secession  from 
Rome.  Its  most  important  member  was  Edward  Sey- 
mour, Earl  of  Hertford,  the  elder  of  the  young  king's 
uncles  ;  the  next  in  influence  was  Cranmer,  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  ;  but  Hertford  was  really  supreme, 
and  was  made,  by  the  first  act  of  the  council,  Lord  Pro- 
tector of  the  Realm.  By  another  of  its  earliest  acts  he 
was  created  Duke  of  Somerset ;  his  brother,  Thomas 
Seymour,  was  appointed  High  Admiral  of  England,  and 
titles  and  liberal  estates  from  monastery  lands  were  freely 
distributed  to  members  of  the  council  and  their  friends. 

148.  The  English  Wooing  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots. 
Henry  VHL,  in  his  arrogant  way,  had  tried  to  force  the 
Scots  to  betroth  their  infant  queen,  Mary,  to  his  son 
Edward,  and  had  failed.  The  ruling  influence  then  in 
Scotland  was  that  of  Cardinal  Beaton  ;  but  the  cardinal 
had  been  murdered,  in  1546,  by  certain  fierce  reformers, 
whom  he  cruelly  persecuted,  and  the  reformation  party 
in  Scotland  now  favored  a  renewal  of  Henry's  design. 
On  their  invitation,  Somerset  led  an  army  to  Edin- 
burgh once  more,  to  capture  a  bride  for  his  young 
Pinkie  king ;  and  again  the  savage  courtship  failed, 
cieugh.  -pj^g  Scots  were  badly  beaten  at  Pinkie  Cleugh, " 
six  miles  from  their  capital ;  but  they  refused  more  stub- 
bornly than  ever  to  yield  the  hand  of  their  five-year-old 
queen.  The  next  year  they  sent  her  to  France,  betrothed 
to  the  dauphin,  and  she  was  reared  at  the  French  court 
(the  court  of  Catherine  de  Medici),  an  alien  to  her  own 
country  and  an  enemy  of  the  reform. 

149.  Cranmer  and  the  Reformation.  It  was  soon 
understood  that  the  new  government  inclined  to  do  more 
than  had  yet  been  done  in  the  reformation  of  the  church, 
and  reformers  in  some  parishes,  of  London  and  else- 
where, began  at  once,  without  waiting  for  authority,  to 


1547-154S]         PROTESTANT    REFORMATION. 


289 


pull  down  the  images  of  saints,  destroy  crucifixes,  and 
erase  paintings  from  the  walls.  In  a  few  months,  orders 
issued  by  the  Protector  made  the  work  of  destruction 
general  and  complete.  ''The  churches  were  new  white- 
limed,  with  the  Commandments  written  on  the  walls."  ^ 

How  far  the  reforming  zeal  of  the  Protector  sprang 
from  sincere  beliefs  is  a  question  not  easy  to  decide.     It 
is  certain  that  he  exposed 
himself,  like  many  other 
men  of  that  time,  to  seri- 
ous doubts  on  this  point, 
by   the    greediness    with 
w^hich  he  helped  himself 
to  riches  taken  from  the 
church.     In  the  case  of 
Cranmer,    who    was    the 
guiding  mind  of  the  refor- 
mation    under     Edward 
VI.,  the  doubts  that  touch 
his  character  are  of  quite 
another  kind.     He  was  no 
doubt  a  sincere  believer 
in  the  doctrines  of  the  re- 
formation, and  was  hon- 
est in   helping  forward   the    separation   of   the  P^nglish 
church  from   Rome  ;  but  it  is  hard  to  see  honesty  in  the 
pliant  service  that  he  gave  to  Henry  VIII.,  throughout 
the  business  of  the  divorce  and  the  variation  of  Henry's 
religious  commands.     It   seems  plain   that   he  cranmer's 
was  lured  by  ambition  into  a  place  where  no-  character, 
thing  but  moral  courage  could  have  kept  his  integrity 
safe,  and  such  courage  he  did  not  possess.      He  became 
the  tool  of  a  despotic  master,  whom  he  dared  not  resist. 

^  Froude,  Hist,  of  Enghuid^  ch.  xxiv. 


THOMAS    CRANMER. 


290       RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.     [1547-1552 

But  Henry's  death  set  him  free,  and  what  he  did  during 
the  next  six  years  may  be  supposed  to  represent  the  con- 
victions of  his  mind. 

Edward's  first  Parhament,  in  1547,  made  a  sweeping 
repeal  of  most  of  the  church  legislation  of  Henry  VHL, 
including  the  Six  Articles,  and  the  statute  book  was 
cleansed  of  many  of  the  monstrous  enactments  of  the 
last  reign.  All  earlier  acts  against  heresy  were  repealed  ; 
but  it  remained  possible,  under  the  common  law,  to  burn 
men  and  women  for  forbidden  opinions,  as  was  proved 
before  long.  The  king  was  again  declared  to  be  the 
supreme  head  of  the  church,  and  denial  of  his 

Renewed  .   .        ,  .  -,       ^ 

pillage  of  spiritual  Supremacy  was  again  made  treason- 
able and  punishable  by  death.  The  confisca- 
tion of  lands  endowing  chantries,  colleges,  and  gilds  was 
renewed  and  enlarged,  and  that  which  Henry  had  not 
lived  long  enough  to  take  was  now  mostly  gathered  in, 
and  distributed  in  the  same  rapacious  way. 

Meantime,  a  commission  of  divines,  with  Cranmer  at 
the  head,  was  busy  in  the  preparation  of  an  English 
Prayer  Book,  to  supersede  the  Latin  service  in  the 
church.  Their  work  was  adopted,  in  1549,  by  an  Act  of 
Uniformity,  which  prescribed  its  use  in  every  church 
and  forbade  all  worship  in  other  forms.  Three  years 
later  it   was  revised  by  a  second  commission, 

The  Prayer 

Book  of       and  a  few  changes  have   since  been  made  ;  but 
the  Prayer  Book  now  used  in  the  English  church 
is  substantially  as  it  was  then  composed. 

150.  Suffering.  —  Discontent.  —  Insurrection.  Ap- 
parently the  people  at  large  were  not  prepared  for  the 
great  changes  in  doctrine  and  worship  that  had  now  been 
forced  upon  the  church.  In  many  towns  the  new  beliefs 
had  spread  widely  ;  ])ut,  generally,  through  the  country, 
and  particularly  in  the  west  and  north,  the  innovations 


1549-1551]        PROTESTANT    REFORMATION.  291 

were  disliked.  This  disaffection  lent  strength  to  a  sharper 
discontent,  produced  by  a  state  of  suffering  among  the 
laboring  poor  that  was  probably  worse  than  England  had 
ever  known  before.  The  diminution  of  tillage,  the  in- 
crease of  pasturage,  the  inclosure  of  common  lands,  the 
debasing  of  the  currency,  begun  by  Henry  and  increased 
by  the  Protector,  all  combined  to  spread  poverty  and  dis- 
tress ;  while  the  charitable  food-giving  of  the  monasteries 
was  stopped.  The  rich  had  been  enormously  enriched 
with  the  lands  and  treasure  of  the  religious  houses  and 
the  gilds  ;  the  poor  had  had  nothing  from  the  overturn- 
ings  of  the  time  but  increase  of  hardship  and  want. 

Risings  in  a  dozen  counties,  during  1549,  were  most  of 
them  locally  put  down.  The  more  alarming  insurrec- 
tions were  in  Devon  and  Cornwall,  where  4000  men  are 
said  to  have  perished  in  battle  or  by  the  executioner, 
before  order  was  restored,  and  in  Norfolk,  where  ^et's 
a  wealthy  tanner,  named  Ket,  became  the  leader  ^e^^^^^o^- 
of  20,000  insurgents  of  the  peasant  class.  Of  Ket's 
army,  2000  were  slain,  and  Ket  himself  was  hanged. 
German  and  Italian  mercenaries  were  employed  against 
both  these  revolts. 

151.  The  Execution  of  Lord  Seymour  and  the  Fall 
of  Somerset.  In  the  spring  of  1549,  Lord  Seymour, 
the  younger  brother  of  the  Protector,  was  accused  of 
treasonable  ambitions  and  brought  to  the  block.  Before 
that  year  closed,  Somerset  himself  had  been  cast  from 
his  high  seat  and  was  at  the  mercy  of  his  foes.  Besides 
offending  many  people,  he  had  alarmed  the  landowners, 
by  proposing  to  check  their  inclosure  of  common  lands. 
He  was  stripped  of  his  offices  and  of  a  large  part  of  his 
wealth,  and  was  confined  for  some  months  in  the  Tower. 
Then  he  was  released  and  enjoyed  liberty  and  life  for 
nearly  two  years;    but  when,  in    155 1,  he   made    some 


292       RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.     [1551-1553 

movements  that  caused  alarm,  he  was  brought  to  trial  and 
sentenced  to  death. 

152.  Ascendency  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland. 
The  council  of  regency  resumed  the  authority  which  the 
Protector  had  practically  absorbed  ;  but  John  Dudley 
(son  of  the  extortionate  minister  of  Henry  VII.),  Earl 
of  Warwick  at  first,  but  soon  made  Duke  of  Northum- 
berland, became  the  leader  in  affairs.  There  was  no 
gain  to  England  in  the  change,  for  rapacity,  waste,  and 
corruption  in  the  government  went  on  as  before,  and  the 
land  was  in  continued  distress. 

Since  the  repeal  of  the  statutes  against  heresy,  ingen- 
ious lawyers  had  found  authority  in  the  common  law  for 
destroying  forbidden  opinions  by  fire,  and  that  authority 
was  used  twice  before  the  close  of  Edward's  reign.  The 
Burnings  ^'^^^  victim  was  a  woman,  Joan  Bocher,  who 
for  heresy.  |^gjj  some  peculiar  view  of  the  incarnation  of 
Christ  ;  the  other  was  a  Hollander  in  London  whose 
belief  was  unitarian,  denying  the  divinity  of  Christ. 
Both  were  tried  before  commissions  of  which  Cranmer 
was  the  head  ;  and  Latimer,  the  most  eminent  preacher 
of  his  day,  was  one  of  those  who  sent  Joan  Bocher  to  the 
stake. 

To  establish  a  more  absolute  standard  of  authorized 
belief  than  the  Prayer  Book  supplied,  forty-two 

The  Thirty-  .    ,  r     r    ■   ^  r         ^       ■  .  T 

nine  articles  01  laith  were  set  lorth  m  1553,  m  the 

name  of  the  king.  Subsequently  these  forty- 
two  articles  were  reduced  to  the  thirty-nine  now  main- 
tained in  the  English  church. 

153.  The  Illness  and  Death  of  Edward  VI.  —  Scheme 
to  change  the  Succession.  In  the  winter  of  1553,  the 
young  King  hklward,  always  delicate,  showed  marked 
signs  of  a  fatal  disease,  and  the  prospect  of  his  early 
death  caused  alarm  among  those  who  were  carrying  on 


1553] 


PROTESTANT    REP^ORMATION. 


293 


the  government  in  his  name.  According  to  the  Act  of 
Succession,  as  finally  shaped,  the  crown  would  pass  from 
Edward  to  his  elder  half-sister,  Mary,  whose  hostility  to 
all  the  changes  in  the  church,  and  generally  to  those 
who  had  brought  them  about,  was  well-known.  Natu- 
rally, it  was  the  desire  of  the  latter  to  prevent  her  acces- 
sion, and  Northumberland,  who  had  everything  at  stake, 
devised  a  scheme  to  that  end.     He  persuaded  Edward 

that,  even  without  au-  

thority     from     Parlia-  ..-- -^ 

ment,  he  might  dictate 
the  succession  by  will. 
The  young  king,  ac- 
cordingly, signed  a 
will,  on  his  deathbed, 
in  which  he  left  the 
crown  to  neither  of  his 
sisters,  but  to  a  lady 
descended  from  his 
father's  sister,  Mary. 
That  younger  sister  of 
Henry  VHL,  who  mar- 
ried the  elderly  King 
of  France  (see  section 
128),  had  taken  for  a 
second  husband  Charles  Brandon,  Duke  of  Suffolk,  and 
had  left  three  granddaughters,  the  eldest  of  whom  was 
Lady  Jane  Grey.  It  was  to  this  great-granddaughter  of 
Henry  VH.,  in  the  female  line,  that  Edward  bequeathed 
his  crown. 

Of  all    the   plotting    in   her   behalf   Lady  Jane  knew 
nothing  at  all.     She  was  an  innocent  girl,  not  Lady  Jane 
yet  sixteen,   sweet   in   character  and   quite   re-  ^'^^■ 
markable  in  mind,  with  a  passion  for  learning  that  was 


LADY  JANE   GREY. 


294  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.         ti553 

rare  in  her  sex  at  that  time.  She  ah-eady  wrote  in  Latin 
and  Greek,  had  the  use  of  Italian  and  French,  and  was 
mastering  Hebrew  when  a  sorrowful  fate  brought  her 
studies  to  a  close.  To  make  sure  that  his  scheme  should 
be  profitable  to  himself,  Northumberland  secured  her 
marriage  to  Guildford  Dudley,  his  son  ;  but,  pleading  to 
be  left  at  home  until  her  husband  and  herself  grew  older, 
she  stayed  with  her  mother  while  the  fatal  conspiracy 
went  on,  knowing  nothing  of  the  web  that  was  being 
woven  round  her  feet.  Nearly  at  the  last  hour,  when 
Edward  was  at  the  point  of  death,  she  was  taken  to  her 
father-in-law's  house  and  told  of  the  destiny  prepared  for 
her  ;  but  she  could  not  be  made  to  realize  it  as  a  fact 
until,  after  the  young  king  had  breathed  his  last  (July  6, 
1553),  the  lords  of  the  council  knelt  to  her  as  queen. 
Then  she  was  overwhelmed,  and  fell  fainting  to  the 
floor.  So  innocent  was  Lady  Jane  Grey  of  ambition,  or 
of  any  guilt  in  the  plot  for  which  she  was  used  ! 

154.  The  Failure  of  the  Proclamation  of  Queen  Jane, 
and  the  Accession  of  Queen  Mary.  Northumberland 
had  reckoned  that  his  possession  of  the  government,  and 
his  probable  ability  to  secure  the  person  of  the  Princess 
Mary,  with  the  Protestant  support  he  might  expect,  would 
enable  him  to  carry  his  project  through.  He  miscalcu- 
lated on  every  point.  Princess  Mary  had  been  fore- 
warned and  prepared  ;  secret  information  w^as  hurried 
to  her  on  the  instant  of  Pxlward's  death,  and  she  fled  to 
friends  in  Norfolk,  proclaiming  herself  queen  and  sum- 
moning support  as  she  went.  The  feeling  of  the  coun- 
try was  shown  from  the  first  moment  to  be  on  her  side. 
Protestants  as  well  as  Catholics  resented  the  selfish  pro- 
jects of  Northumberland,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  virtues 
of  Lady  Jane  Grey.  When  heralds  proclaimed  the  acces- 
sion of  the  latter  (July  10),  Protestant  London  was  omi- 


1553] 


CATHOLIC    REACTION. 


295 


nously  silent  and  cold.  When  Northumberland  led  forth 
his  troops,  to  pursue  Mary  into  Norfolk,  he  found  that 
they  could  not  be  trusted,  while  the  people  were  every- 
where hostile,  and  he  gave  up  his  attempt.  With  his  own 
voice,  at  Cambridge,  he  proclaimed  Mary  to  be  queen  ; 
the  next  morning  he  was  arrested  and  sent  to  the  Tower. 
Mary  entered  London  on  the  3d  of  August,  met  at  the 


QUEEN  MARY  TUDOR,  OR  MARY  I. 

gates  by  her  sister  Elizabeth,  who  had  quietly  waited 
the  turn  of  events.  At  first  she  showed  a  generous  dis- 
position, and  is  said  to  have  been  willing  to  save  even 
Northumberland  from  the  block  ;  but  her  counsellors 
would  not  consent.  Besides  Northumberland,  only  two 
of  his  confederates  were  then  put  to  death.  It  is  to  the 
credit  of  Queen  Mary  that  she  resisted  strong  urging, 
from  her  cousin,  the  Emperor  Charles,  and  from  others, 


296  RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.  [1553 

to  put  Lady  Jane  Grey  to  death  at  that  time  ;  but  the 
guiltless  victim  of  Northumberland's  plot  was  kept  in 
prison,  with  her  husband  and  other  friends,  and  their 
fate  was  but  postponed. 

155.  The  First  Year  of  Mary's  Reign.  If  we  remem- 
ber that  the  gross  wronging  of  Mary's  mother  was  the 
beginning  of  all  that  had  been  done  in  the  English 
church,  and  that  Mary  herself  had  been  continually 
branded  and  shamed  in  the  proceeding,  we  cannot  think 
it  strange  that  she  came  to  the  throne  with  a  passion- 
ate desire  to  undo  the  whole  work.  From  the  first  mo- 
ment, she  did  not  disguise  her  wish. 

When  her  first  Parliament  came  together,  in  Novem- 
ber, it  was  found  willing  to  restore  the  ancient  service  in 
the  church,  and  to  repeal  all  statutes  which  recognized 
the  divorce  of  Henry  VIII.  from  his  first  wife,  but  so 
strongly  opposed  to  a  restoration  of  papal  authority  that 
the  queen  was  compelled  to  defer  that  part  of  her  design. 
Acts  were  passed  which  annulled  practically  everything 
that  had  been  done  in  church  matters  during  Edward's 
reign,  putting  them  back  to  about  the  state  in 
church^  which  they  were  left  at  Henry's  death.  So  far, 
ma  ers.  apparently,  and  no  farther,  a  large  body  of  the 
supporters  of  Mary  desired  to  -go  with  her  in  restorative 
work.  Several  conservative  bishops  who  had  been  de- 
posed from  their  sees  in  the  late  reign  —  Gardiner  of 
Winchester  and  Bonner  of  London  among  the  number  — 
used  their  influence  to  keep  the  reaction  within  such 
bounds  ;  but  Mary  had  the  obstinacy  of  her  father,  and 
only  bided  her  time. 

Another  purpose,  more  opposed  to  the  feeling  of  her 
Mary's  subjccts,  was  equally  fixed  in  the  queen's  mind. 
to¥hiiip^  She  had  determined  to  marry  Philip  of  Spain, 
of  Spain.      —  ^]^g  emperor's  son,  —  her  junior  by  ten  years. 


1554]  CATHOLIC    REACTION.  297 

She  was  Spanish  in  every  sympathy,  and  PhiHp  was  her 
ideal  of  a  man.  ParHament  petitioned  humbly  against 
the  marriage,  but  with  no  effect. 

156.  Wyatt's  Rebellion.  Feeling  against  the  mar- 
riage of  the  queen  to  her  Spanish  cousin  was  probably 
strong  enough  to  produce  a  revolution,  if  a  capable  leader 
had  called  it  out  ;  but  the  men  who  undertook  to  do  so 
were  wanting  in  boldness,  as  well  as  in  position  and 
weight.  Only  one  of  the  chiefs  in  a  wide  conspiracy 
performed  his  part  with  courage  to  the  end.  Sir  Thomas 
Wyatt,  son  of  the  poet,  rallied  15,000  men  in  Kent  (Jan- 
uary, 1554),  and  marched  on  London;  but,  having  no 
support  from  other  quarters,  he  was  overpowered.  The 
queen  was  in  serious  danger  for  a  time,  but  faced  it  with 
the  courage  that  belonged  to  her  race. 

If  the  Tudor  courage  in  Mary's  nature  was  called  out 
by  this  abortive  rebellion,  the  Tudor  temper  was  equally 
hardened  by  its  effect,  Mercy  had  no  longer  any  toler- 
ance in  her  heart.  On  the  morning  after  Wyatt  was  over- 
come she  signed  a  warrant  for  the  execution  of  Lady  Jane 
Grey  and  Guildford  Dudley,  who,  as  captives  in 
the  Tower,  had  no  possible  connection  with  his  otLady 

'■  Jane  Grey. 

attempt.  Three  days  later  they  suffered  death. 
At  the  same  time,  the  queen's  sister,  Elizabeth,  was  sent 
to  the  Tower,  with  a  hope,  plainly  shown,  that  some 
ground  might  be  found  for  putting  her  to  death.  Eliza- 
beth's name  had  been  used  by  the  conspirators,  and  their 
plan  had  been  to  place  her  on  the  throne  ;  but  the  pru- 
dence of  her  conduct,  then  and  always  during  Mary's 
reign,  gave  no  opportunity  to  connect  her  with  treasonable 
designs.  Of  those  concerned  in  Wyatt's  rebellion,  some 
sixty  or  eighty  were  beheaded  and  hanged,  including  the 
Duke  of  Suffolk,  the  father  of  Lady  Jane  Grey. 

157.  Papal   Authority   restored.     The   marriage    of 


298 


RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION. 


[1554 


Mary  and  Philip  took  place  in  July  (1554)-  In  Novem- 
ber a  new  Parliament  was  convoked,  and  the  elections 
had  been  managed  so  carefully  that  it  proved  to  be  a 
body  obedient  to  the  will  of  the  queen  in  every  particular 
save  one.  That  one  was  the  restoration  of  the  property 
taken  from  the  monks,  the  friars,  and  the  chantry  priests. 
Almost  every  opulent  family  in  the  kingdom  is  said  to 

have  had  some 
share  in  the  divi- 
sion of  that  wealth, 
or  to  have  acquired 
some  interest  in  it, 
and  Parliament,  re- 
presenting the  op- 
ulent class  in  the 
main,  would  do 
anything  that  the 
queen  demanded 
except  to  surrender 
those  spoils.  It 
drove,  in  fact,  an 
obstinate  bargain 
with  the  queen  and 
with  Cardinal  Pole, 
who  appeared  as 
the  legate  of  the  pope,  by  which,  on  one  side,  the  owners 
of  church  property  were  guaranteed  against  disturbance 
in  their  possession,  and  the  realm  of  England  received 
papal  absolution  "from  all  heresy  and  schism  ;  "  on  the 
other  side,  all  acts  against  the  supremacy  of  the  Roman 
See  were  repealed,  and  the  heresy  laws  were  restored, 
including  the  horrible  act  ''  for  the  burning  of  heretics  " 
which  had  disgraced  the  reign  of  Henry  IV.,  a  hundred 
and  fifty  years  before.     That  the  hand  of  Philip  was  in 


PHILIP    II. 


1555-1558]  CATHOLIC    REACTION.  299 

this,  he  left  proof  in  a  letter  of  his  own,  written  to  his 
sister  Juana  :  "  With  the  intervention  of  the  Parliament," 
he  wrote,  "  we  have  made  a  law,  I  and  the  most  illustrious 
queen,  for  the  punishment  of  heretics  and  all  enemies  of 
holy  church  ;  we  have  revived  the  old  ordinances  of  the 
realm,  which  will  serve  this  purpose  very  well."  And 
he  was  right.     They  served  the  purpose  well. 

158.  The  Persecution.  Early  in  1555,  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  act  "  for  the  burning  of  heretics  "  was  be- 
gun. Rogers,  a  canon  of  St.  Paul,  was  the  first  to  be  sent 
to  the  stake.  A  deposed  bishop.  Hooper,  was  the  next  to 
suffer,  followed  after  an  interval  by  the  three  most  con- 
spicuous victims  of  the  persecution,  Cranmer,  Latimer, 
and  Ridley.  Cranmer  alone  sought  to  save  cranmerat 
himself  by  renouncing  his  beliefs  ;  but  his  cour-  ^^^  ^^^^^■ 
age  rose  when  death  had  to  be  faced,  and  he  met  it 
manfully,  thrusting  his  right  hand,  which  had  signed  a 
recantation,  into  the  fire  to  be  first  burned. 

From  that  time  the  persecution  was  relentlessly  pressed 
in  every  part  of  the  land.  Says  the  Roman  Catholic 
historian,  Dr.  Lingard,  who  writes  of  the  painful  subject 
with  great  fairness  of  mind  :  "  The  persecution  continued 
till  the  death  of  Mary.  Sometimes  milder  counsels  pre- 
i^ailed  ;  and  on  one  occasion  all  the  prisoners  were  dis- 
charged on  the  easy  condition  of  taking  an  oath  to  be 
true  to  God  and  the  queen.  But  these  intervals  were 
short ;  and,  after  some  suspense,  the  spirit  of  intolerance 
was  sure  to  resume  the  ascendency."  Making  allowance 
for  condemnations  that  were  not  entirely  for  theological 
beliefs.  Dr.  Lincrard  concludes  that  "in  the  space 

^  Number 

of  four  years   almost  two  hundred  persons  per-  of  the 

.   1       T     .  .         n  r  1-    •  ■     •         >>  1    victims. 

ished    m     the   flames   for    religious    opinion.    ^ 

Other  writers  have  placed  the  number  burned  at  nearly 

1  Lingard,  //z's^.  of  Eng.,  vol.  vii.  ch.  iii. 


300        RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.     [1555-1558 

three  hundred.  The  contemporary  Lord  Burleigh  wrote 
that,  "  by  imprisonment,  by  torment,  by  famine,  by  fire, 
almost  the  number  of  four  hundred  were  lamentably  de- 
stroyed." 

Was  it  Mary  and  her  Spanish  husband,  or  Gardiner, 
her  chancellor,  or  Cardinal  Pole,  who  became  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  that  inspired  the  persecution  most  ? 
There  are  differences  of  view,  but  the  greater  weight  of 
judgment  is  against  the  queen.  The  German  historian, 
Theffuiit  Professor  Ranke,  who  examines  the  question 
of  Mary.  with  no  partiality,  believes  a  statement  made 
by  Gardiner,  that  the  chief  impulse  to  the  revival  of  the 
barbarous  old  heresy  laws  came  from  Mary  herself,  and 
is  convinced  "  that  the  persecutions  would  never  have 
begun  without  her."  His  final  judgment  is  that  "  no  ex- 
cuse can  free  her  memory  from  the  dark  shade  which 
rests  on  it."  ^  But  who  can  doubt  that  being  the  wife  of 
the  *' man  of  blood"  from  Spain  had  much  to  do  with 
making  her  the  ''  Bloody  Mary  "  of  English  history  ? 

159.  The  Close  of  Mary's  Reign.  It  is  probably  the 
fact  that  Mary's  attachment  to  the  Roman  creed  and 
worship  was  shared  by  a  majority  of  her  subjects  ;  but 
she  failed  to  kindle  among  them  her  own  fury  against 
the  preachers  and  professors  of  another  faith.  It  is 
manifest  that  the  persecutions  were  abhorrent  to  the 
people  at  large,  and  that  the  Roman  cause  in  England  was 
profoundly  weakened  by  their  effect.  Her  Spanish  mar- 
riage grew  continually  more  hateful  to  all  classes,  after 
Philip  had  succeeded  to  his  father's  sovereignty,  and 
especially  after  England,  in  1557,  had  been  drawn  into 
the  endless  Spanish  war  with  France.  The  country 
was  in  a  state  of  suffering,  deepened  even  from  that 
of  the  preceding  reign.     The  vigor  of  the  nation  seemed 

1  Ranke,  //?>/.  0/  Eiig.,  vol.  i.  book  ii.  ch.  viii. 


1558]  CATHOLIC    REACTION.  3OI 

to  be  lost.     It  had  no  standing  in  Europe ;  it  could  do 
nothing  with    success   in  war.      At   last,   even  Logsof 
Calais,  which  it  had  been  the  pride  of  England  Calais, 
to  hold  on  French  soil  for  two  hundred  years,  was  lost 

(1558). 

There  was  plenty  of  rebellion  in  English  hearts,  much 
conspiring  talk,  much  intriguing  with  great  numbers 
of  English  refugees  in  France  ;  but  cautious  men  were 
kept  quiet  by  dread  of  what  Philip  might  do  with  the 
fleets  and  armies  of  Spain.  The  queen  was  as  unhappy 
as  her  kingdom.  After  a  few  months  of  marriage,  her 
beloved  Philip  had  left  her,  and  he  made  her  but  one 
brief  visit  more.  She  had  prayed  for  a  son  and  none 
was  given  her.  The  heresy  among  her  subjects  proved 
too  obstinate  to  be  crushed.  Even  the  pope  had  taken 
the  side  of  P' ranee  against  Philip  and  herself,  and  had 
ordered  Cardinal  Pole  back  to  Rome.  Everything  had 
disappointed  her  hopes.  In  the  autumn  of  1558  Death  of 
she  sickened  of  a  fever  then  raging  in  England,  ^^-ry. 
and  on  the  17th  of  November  she  died.  A  few  hours 
later,  Cardinal  Pole  breathed  his  last. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

147.  Edward  VI.  and  the  Protector  Somerset. 

Topic 

I.  The  council  of  regency  and  its  membership. 
References.  —  Bright,  ii.  422,  423.     History  of  regency:  Taswell- 

Langmead,  349-359:   H.  Taylor,  ii.  109-114. 
Research  Question.  —  (i.)  Describe   the  state  of  mind  of  the 

clergy  under  the  Protector.     (Green,  360.) 

148.  The  English  Wooing  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots. 

Topics. 

1.  Henry  VHP's  design  toward  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots. 

2.  Renewal  of  Henry's  design  and  battle  of  Pinkie  Cleugh. 


302  PROTESTANT  REFORMATION. 

3.  Betrothal  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  425-427. 

149.  Cranmer  and  the  Reformation. 

Topics- 

1.  Destruction  of  images,  paintings,  etc. 

2.  Sincerity  of  the  Protector  and  of  Cranmer. 

3.  Repeal  of  the  Six  Articles  and  renewal  of  Act  of  Supremacy. 

4.  New  confiscation  and  preparation  of  EngUsh  Prayer  Book. 
Reference.  —  Green,  357,  358. 

160.  Suffering.  —  Discontent.  —  Insurrection. 

Topics. 

1.  Condition  of  popular  belief. 

2.  Grounds  for  discontent. 

3.  Effect  of  changes  upon  rich  and  poor. 

4.  Ket's  rebellion. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  430-433. 

Research    Question.  —  (i.)    What   evil    proceeding   of    Henry 
VIII. 's  time  was  followed  by  Edward  VI.. ^     (Gardiner,  ii.  420.) 

151.  The  Execution  of  Lord  Seymour  and  the  Fall  of 

Somerset. 
Topics. 

1.  Seymour's  ambitions  and  death. 

2.  Somerset's  downfall  and  execution. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  429-434. 

152.  Ascendency  of  the  Duke  of  Northumberland. 

Topics. 

1.  The  new  leader. 

2.  Executions  for  heresy. 

3.  Articles  of  faith. 
Reference.  —  Green,  359-362. 

153.  The  Illness  and  Death  of  Edward  VI.  —  Scheme 

to  change  the  Succession. 
Topics. 

1.  Sickness  of  the  king. 

2.  Northumberland's  plot  to  change  the  Act  of  Succession. 

3.  Lady  Jane  Grey:    «,  her  character;  b^  her  marriage;  c^  her 

innocence  of  treason. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND   QUESTIONS.      303 

References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  420.  Lady  Jane  Grey  :  Gardiner,  ii. 
420-423:  Bright,  ii.  441,  444-447,  451;  Green,  361-363;  Colby, 
152-154;  Guest,  419-423;  H.Taylor,  ii.  132,  134;  Green,  H.  E. 
P.,  ii.  232-242. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Explain  "Edward's  plan"  as  ar- 
ranged by  Northumberland,  (Green,  361.)  (2.)  What  made  it 
easy  for  the  duke  to  get  Edward's  consent  to  the  plan  ?  (3.) 
Why  was  Henry  VIII.'s  will  more  binding  than  that  of  Edward 
VI?     (Gardiner,  ii.  420.) 

154.  The  Failure  of  the  Proclamation  of  Queen  Jane, 

and  the  Accession  of  Queen  Mary. 
Topics. 

1.  Northumberland's  miscalculation. 

2.  Mary's  action  and  the  people's  loyalty  to  her. 

3.  Mary's  attitude  at  first  toward  her  enemies. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  442-447. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  influences  were  paving  the 
way  for  Mary's  accession,  even  in  the  reign  of  her  father?  (Mo- 
berly,  174.)  (2.)  What  political  reaction  in  her  favor  at  the  pro- 
clamation of  Lady  Jane?     (Green,  361.) 

155.  The  First  Year  of  Mary's  Reign. 
Topics. 

1.  Natural  reason  for  Mary's  religious  attitude. 

2.  Her  first  Parliament. 

3.  Her  marriage. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  421-423. 

Research  Questions,  (i.)  In  what  way  was  Mary's  accession 
a  new  departure  for  England  ?  (Taswell-Langmead,  396.)  (2.) 
What  political  objection  did  the  English  have  to  the  marriage  of 
Mary  with  Philip?  (Guest,  421.)  (3.)  What  religious  objection 
did  they  have  ?     (Guest,  422.) 

156.  Wyatt's  Rebellion. 
Topics. 

1.  Uprising  because  of  the  queen's  marriage. 

2.  Mary  hardens  her  heart. 

3.  Death  of  Lady  Jane  Grey  and  action  against  Elizabeth. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  449-452. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  events  of  Mary's  youth  would 


304 


CATHOLIC    REACTION. 


naturally  prejudice  her  against  Elizabeth?  (2.)  How  would  the 
question  of  legitimacy  keep  Mary  and  Elizabeth  always  hostile  ? 
(3.)  What  religious  reason  for  this  was  there  also  ? 

167.  Papal  Authority  restored. 
Topics. 

1.  The  new  Parliament. 

2.  Opposition  to  restoring  church  property. 

3.  Parliament  makes  a  bargain  with  Mary. 

4.  PhiHp's  part  in  it. 
Reference,  —  Bright,  ii.  453. 

158.  The  Persecution. 

Topics. 

1.  The  first  victims. 

2.  Cranmer  at  the  stake. 

3.  Extent  of  the  persecution  and  Mary's  responsibility. 
Reference.  —  Green,  363-368. 

159.  The  Close  of  Mary's  Reign. 

Topics. 

1.  The  feeling  of  the  people  on  the  persecution. 

2.  Decline  of  the  nation  and  the  loss  of  Calais. 

3.  Queen  and  people  ahke  unhappy. 

References.  —  Green,  366,  368,  369  ;  Guest,  434 ;  Traill,  iii.  191- 
193.  State  of  society  in  these  reigns  :  Bright,  ii.  462-484  ;  Creigh- 
ton,  Age  of  Elizabeth,  19-21  ;  Traill,  iii.  230-274. 


LINEAGE    OF    THE    TUDOR    FAMILY    OF    ENGLISH 
SOVEREIGNS,    FROM    HENRY    VII. 


I 


Henry  VII., 

1485-1509, 
married 

Elizabeth, 
(daujcliter  of 
Edward  IV.). 


Margaret, 

married 

James  IV. 

of  Scotland. 

Henry  VIII. 

1509-1547 

married 

T.   Katharine 


f      James  V., 
j    of  Scotland, 


1 
i. 


married 

Mary 
0/  Guise. 


Mary, 
553-1558- 


! 


Mary, 
Que 671  of  Scots. 


of  A  ragon. 

.         T>  1  (  Elizabeth, 

2.  Anne  Boleyn.  |     ,^^^_,(,^^^ 

T        o  (  Edward  VI., 

3.  Jane  beymour.  ,,, 
•^  -*            ^             (      1547-1553- 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

the  elizabethan  age. 

The  Last  of  the  Tudors  :  Queen  Elizabeth. 

1558-1603. 

160.  The  Accession  of  Elizabeth.  The  death  of  Mary 
was  arehef  at  which  England  rejoiced  with  no  disguise  ; 
the  crowning  of  Elizabeth  was  accepted  by  all  parties 
without  apparent  dissent.  Yet  what  did  England  know 
of  this  new  sovereign,  —  this  young  woman  of  twenty- 
five  years,  who  had  lived  a  secluded  life  ?  It  is  hardly 
possible  for  us  to  realize  the  uncertainty  with  which  she 
was  given  the  enormous  powers  of  the  crown.  All  the 
questions  of  religion  and  the  church  that  had  twice  been 
turned  and  overturned,  within  eleven  years,  were  once 
more  flung  into  a  royal  lottery  wheel,  to  be  settled  by 
a  drawing  blindly  made.  Of  any  other  settlement  for 
those  questions  than  by  the  will  or  the  opinion  or  the 
caprice  of  the  crowned  sovereign,  whether  man  or  woman 
or  child,  there  was  little  dream  in  those  days.  What 
Elizabeth  would  do  with  the  church,  what  creed  she 
would  dictate  to  her  subjects,  what  attitude  towards 
the  pope  she  would  take,  none  knew,  and  all  parties  had 
hopes. 

161.  The  Character  of  Elizabeth  and  her  Reign.  In 
the  character  of  Elizabeth,  strength  and  weakness  were 
singularly  mixed.  Her  strength  was  in  a  spirit  that 
knew  little  of  fear.      It  was  the  courage  of  her  father. 


3o6  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1558 

without  the  heartless  stoHdity  that  he  showed  ;  and  it 
was  made  so  inspiring  by  her  sex  that  it  stimulated  the 
nation,  at  a  critical  time,  more  than  any  valorous  leader- 
ship by  a  man  could  have  done.  Of  intellectual  strength, 
there  is  little  to  be  found  in  her  conduct  of  affairs.  She 
was  hesitating,  capricious,  deceitful  ;  swayed  often  by 
trivial  influences  ;  guided  by  no  principle  ;  giving  infinite 
trouble  to  the  able  ministers  who  served  her  with  the 
patience  of  wise  men.  Like  her  father,  she  had  good 
judgment  of  men,  choosing  them  for  her  service  with 
few  mistakes  ;  and  she  was  more  faithful  to  them  than 
he,  taking  from  them  as  much  guidance  as  her  capri- 
ciousness  would  permit.  She  was  hardly  less  wilful  than 
Henry,  and  hardly  less  egotistic ;  but  her  selfishness  was 
not  so  supreme.  She  identified  herself  with  England, 
whereas  Henry  had  identified  England  with  himself. 
She  made  the  nation  proudly  conscious  of  her  love. 

Circumstances  gave  a  remarkable  distinction  to  Eliza- 
beth's reign.     Between  its  beginning  and  its  ending  Eng- 
land was  born  into  a  new  life,  throusfh  marvel- 

The  .  ,  ^  . 

Elizabeth  lous  changes  in  the  mind  and  spirit  of  the 
people.  When,  therefore,  we  look  back  to  that 
astonishing  age,  we  see  the  throned  figure  of  the  queen 
in  a  glorified  light,  and  may  easily  give  her  more  credit 
for  the  grandeur  of  her  reign  than  is  her  due. 

162.  The  New  Reformation  of  the  Church.  The  in- 
tentions of  Elizabeth  concerning  the  church  were  promptly 
intimated  by  the  appointment  of  Sir  William  Cecil  (after- 
wards Lord  Burleigh)  to  be  her  secretary,  and  evidently 
to  be  the  counsellor  in  whom  she  placed  her  trust.  Cecil 
had  been  secretary  to  Edward  VL,  and  was  known  to  be 
a  Protestant  at  heart,  though  he  had  been  kept  in  public 
service  during  Mary's  reign,  and  had  outwardly  conformed 
to  the  Roman  rites.     His  political  ability  was  very  great, 


308  RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.  [1559 

and  he  retained  Elizabeth's  confidence  for  forty  years. 
A  plainer  notice  of  royal  intentions  was  given  in  a  pro- 
clamation, soon  issued,  which  forbade  preaching  by  the 
clergy,  "  until  consultation  might  be  had  in  Parliament 
by  the  queen  and  the  three  estates ;  "  but  ordering  that 
worship  should  continue  meantime  in  the  established 
form. 

Late   in  January,   1559,   Parliament   assembled.     Pro- 
testant candidates  had  been  recommended  to  the  electors 
by  Elizabeth,  and  a  Protestant  Parliament  was 

New  Act  of  IT  1 

Suprem-  duly  scut  up,  to  be  as  obedient  to  the  new 
queen  as  the  Catholic  Parliament  had  been  to 
her  predecessor.  A  new  Act  of  Supremacy  was  passed, 
which  again  severed  the  English  church  from  Rome, 
requiring  bishops  and  clergy,  and  all  laymen  in  office, 
to  renounce  obedience  to  the  pope.  This  act  repealed 
once  more  the  terrible  statutes  against  heresy  which 
Mary  had  revived. 

The  Act  of  Supremacy  was  followed  by  a  new  Act 
of  Uniformity,  which  restored  to  use  the  second  Prayer 
Book  of  Edward  VI.,  with  some  slight  changes,  forbid- 
ding any  other  liturgy,  with  penalties  of  impris- 

New  Act  of  ^         _  ^       .  ,  r  \  .     -, 

Uniform-  oumcut,  cvcn  lor  lite  in  the  case  of  a  third 
^  ^'  offence.     If  Elizabeth  and  her  counsellors  aban- 

doned the  fagot  and  stake  as  instruments  of  religious 
persuasion,  they  intended,  nevertheless,  that  no  opinions 
except  their  own  should  have  a  voice. 

Of  the  bishops,  all  but  one  refused  the  oath  required,. 

and  were  removed  ;  but  the  clergy  in  general  are  said  to 

have  submitted  to  the  law,  and  the  mass  of  the  people 

o^ave    obedience   to    it    by    due    attendance    at 

Attitude  of  . 

clergy  and    church.     Two  kiuds  of  vcry  earnest  opposition 

were  kept  alive,  however  :    one  among  ardent 

Catholics,  who  maintained  hidden  priests  and  worshipped 


1559]  THE    ELIZABETHAN    AGE.  309 

in  secret  places  according  to  the  ancient  rites ;  the  other 
among  Protestants,  who  demanded  far  more  of  a  change 
in  creed  and  worship  than  the  queen  and  Parliament  had 
prescribed. 

163.  The  Question  of  the  Queen's  Marriage.  Next 
in  importance  to  the  questions  of  religion  was  the  ques- 
tion of  the  marriage  of  the  queen.  Her  subjects  were 
exceedingly  anxious  that  she  should  become  a  wife  and 
mother,  to  remove  all  doubt  as  to  the  succession  to  the 
throne.  The  first  proceeding  of  her  first  Parliament  was 
humbly  to  convey  to  her  the  national  wish.  She  gave 
a  polite  reply,  but  made  it  plain  that  the  matter,  in  her 
view,  was  one  to  be  settled  by  herself.  If,  however,  she 
came  to  any  decision  in  her  own  mind,  she  never  allowed 
it  to  be  known.  The  question  remained  open  and  irritat- 
ing for  many  years. 

Queen  Elizabeth  showed  many  and  lasting  signs  of 
affection  for  Lord  Robert  Dudley,  son  of  the  late  Duke 
of  Northumberland,  and  was  supposed  to  be  intending  to 
give  him  her  hand.  Dudley,  who  became  Earl  TheEariof 
of  Leicester,  is  under  suspicion  to  this  day  of  Leicester, 
having  caused  his  wife,  Amy  Robsart,  to  be  murdered, 
in  order  to  free  himself  for  the  royal  marriage  to  which 
he  aspired  ;  but  his  guilt  has  not  been  proved.  It  is 
certain  that  he  was  most  unfit  in  all  respects  to  be  the 
husband  of  the  queen.  Quite  probably  she  had  resolved 
from  the  first  to  share  her  throne  with  no  man,  and  to 
give  the  influence  of  a  husband  to  none. 

164.  Elizabeth  and  Mary  Stuart.  Most  of  the  seri- 
ous troubles  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  arose  from  the 
relationship  of  the  Queen  of  Scots  to  the  English  royal 
line.  If  the  marriage  of  Anne  Boleyn  to  Henry  VIII. 
was  not  lawful,  as  Roman  Catholics  believed  it  was  not, 
and  if,  therefore,  Elizabeth  was  not  lawfully  one  of  her 


310      RENAISSANCE   AND   REFORMATION.      [1559-1560 


father's  heirs,  then  the  EngUsh  crown  should  have  gone, 
by  right  of  inheritance,  to  the  Scottish   queen,  whose 

grandmother  was  the 
elder  daughter  of 
Henry  VII.  Had  Mary 
Stuart  not  married  in 
France,  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  the 
Catholics,  controlling 
the  English  govern- 
ment when  Mary  Tu- 
dor died,  would  have 
brought  her  to  the 
throne.  But  patriotic 
Catholics  preferred  a 
Protestant  sovereign, 
even  doubting  her 
legitimacy,  to  a  Catho- 
lic queen  wedded  to  a 
French  king,  and  likely 
to  unite  the  French  and  English  crowns  on  one  head. 

So  long  as  the  French  character  clung  to  Mary,  her 
pretensions  were  not  dangerous  ;  but,  in  1560,  Francis  II., 
her  husband,  died,  after  a  brief  reign  of  eighteen  months, 
and  she  returned  to  her  own  country  in  the  following 
year.  Then,  as  Queen  of  Scots,  and  no  longer  of  France, 
she  became  the  desire  of  English  Catholics,  and  Catho- 
Queenof  l^cs  were  supposed  at  that  time  to  be  the  ma- 
scots, jority  of  English  people.  Political  reasons,  too, 
were  all  in  favor  of  a  union  of  the  English  and  Scottish 
crowns.  Personally,  Mary  possessed  charms  which  Eliz- 
abeth lacked.  Her  courage  was  equal  ;  her  intelligence 
was  probably  superior  ;  in  decision  she  was  the  stronger 
of  the  two.     But  Elizabeth  had  a  perfect  command  of 


MARY   STUART. 


I557-I559]  THE    ELIZABETHAN    AGE.  311 

her  passions,  while  Mary  had  none,  and  that  was  the 
winning  quaUty  by  which  the  former  triumphed  in  the 
duel  between  the  two. 

165.  The  Reformation  in  Scotland.  The  movement 
which  overturned  the  old  church  in  Scotland  was  a  move- 
ment of  the  people,  in  opposition  to  the  government, 
from  beginning  to  end.  The  Scottish  church  was  ex- 
ceptionally wealthy  and  corrupt.  It  had  no  hold  on  the 
veneration  of  the  people,  and  the  ideas  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, set  forth  by  zealous  preachers,  were  rapidly  spread 
abroad.  Then  a  meaner  influence  came  to  their  aid. 
Scottish  nobles  caught  a  hint  from  the  examples  set  in 
England  and  Germany,  and  hungered  for  a  confiscation 
of  the  property  of  the  church,  which  was  said  to  cover 
half  the  kingdom.  It  is  plain  that  this  motive  enhsted 
some,  though  not  all,  in  a  powerful  combination 

-.,_,-.„  .,,  ,  Lords  of 

01  the  "  Lords  01  the  Congregation,  as  they  the  con- 
were  called,  which  took  form  near  the  close  of 
the  year  1557,  under  a  covenant  (the  "First  Covenant  " 
of  the  Scottish  Reformation)  to  ''maintain,  nourish,  and 
defend  the  whole  congregation  of  Christ."  The  leader 
of  the  movement  was  John  Knox,  a  preacher  of  intense 
earnestness  and  commanding  powers,  who  had  returned 
lately  from  a  long  exile,  in  England  at  first  and  then  in 
Geneva,  which  had  been  the  refuge  of  many  ministers  of 
the  reform. 
*  Under  the  regency  of  Mary  of  Guise,  mother  of  the 
absent  young  queen,  French  influence  had  directed  the 
government  more  than  even  Scottish  friendship  for 
France  could  willingly  bear,  and  national  jealousies  had 
begun  to  arise.  A  political  feeling  was  thus  brought  to 
the  support  of  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation,  when,  in 
1559,  freshly  roused  by  the  cruel  burning  of  an  aged 
preacher  at  St.  Andrews,  they  rose  in  open  revolt ;  but 


312      RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.      [1559-1561 

the  whole  temper  of  the  rising  was  directed  against  the 

obnoxious  church.     Beginning  at  Perth,  incited  by  Knox 

and  other  preachers,  a  storm  of  destructive  rage 

The  rising  ^  '  ^ 

against  the  broke  out  and  swept  the  land.  Monasteries 
and  abbeys  were  laid  in  ruins,  and  the  images 
and  pictures  of  saints  in  the  churches  were  ruthlessly 
destroyed.  Protestant  congregations  were  formed,  which 
took  possession  of  the  parish  churches,  stopped  the  Mass, 
and  established  worship  according  to  their  own  forms. 
The  religious  revolution  was  an  accomplished  fact,  we 
may  say,  from  that' year;  for,  though  the  reformers  had 
still  a  struggle  before  them,  their  work  was  never  un- 
done. 

With  help  from  France,  the  regent  was  able  to  check 
the  revolt,  and  its  leaders  cried  to  England  for  aid.  But 
any  rebellion  of  subjects  against  their  sovereign  was 
hateful  to  Elizabeth,  and  she  gave  slight  and  grudging 
support  to  the  insurgent  Scottish  lords.  They  held  their 
ground,  however,  and  Queen  Elizabeth  was  arranging 
Death  of  terms  of  peace  for  them  with  the  regent,  when 
the  regent,  ^j^^  latter  died,  in  June,  1560.  In  August,  the 
Scottish  Estates  met  and  renounced  the  authority  of  the 
pope,  prohibited  the  Mass,  and  adopted  the  Genevan 
or  Calvinistic  confession  of  faith.  Four  months  later, 
Francis  II.  (the  husband  of  Mary  Stuart)  was  dead,  the 
Guises  had  been  driven  from  power  in  France,  and  Mary, 
stripped  of  French  support,  was  preparing  to  return  to 
her  own  land. 

166.  Mary  Stuart  in  Scotland.  Mary  Stuart  re- 
turned to  Scotland  in  August,  1561,  being  then  in  her 
nineteenth  year.  Her  beauty  and  her  winning  ways  were 
The  Earl  of  ^""^t  easy  to  rcsist,  and  she  won  devoted  ad- 
Murray,  niirers  and  friends.  She  listened  to  the  advice 
of  her  half-brother,  James  Stuart,  Earl  of  Murray,  who 


0      S     10  20  30 


HISTORICAL   MAP   OF   SCOTLAND. 


314      RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.      [1561-1565 

was  the  leader  of  the  Protestant  lords,  and  attempted 
no  rash  interference  with  the  religious  changes  that  had 
been  made. 

Towards  Elizabeth,  Mary  acted  a  conciliatory  part, 
dropping  the  title  of  Queen  of  England,  which  she  had 
assumed  in  France,  but  steadily  urging  her  claim  to  be 
acknowledged  as  the  next  heir  to  the  English  crown. 
Prudence  may  have  forbidden  that  acknowledgment  on 
Elizabeth's  side  ;  but  the  refusal  of  it  deepened  feeling 
in  Mary's  favor,  among  English  Catholics,  as  well  as 
among  her  subjects  at  home.  With  Mary,  as  with  Eliza- 
beth, the  question  of  marriage  became  a  subject  of  much 
negotiation  and  debate,  EHzabeth,  fearing  a  Catholic 
Thesucces-  alliance  that  would  make  the  Queen  of  Scots 
^^°^"  more    dangerous   to   herself,   brought    forward 

Leicester,  her  own  favorite,  as  a  candidate  for  Mary's 
hand,  and  promised  the  English  succession  to  her  if  she 
made  that  choice  ;  but  the  Scottish  queen  knew  that  no 
marriage  could  give  more  offence  to  her  English  Catho- 
lic friends.  Their  wishes  pointed  to  a  cousin  of  Mary 
lqj.^  Stuart,  Lord  Darnley,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Len- 

Darniey.      j-^q^^  ^y}^Q  j^^^j  bccu  bom  and  bred  in  England, 

under  Catholic  influences,  and  was  looked  upon  as  an 
English  Catholic  lord. 

167.  Mary's  Marriage  to  Darnley,  and  his  Murder. 
In  the  end,  it  was  to  Darnley  that  Mary  gave  her  hand 
(July,  1565).  Certain  of  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation, 
with  Murray  at  their  head,  rose  in  revolt,  looking  to  Eng- 
land for  help,  which  Elizabeth  had  led  them  to  expect. 
They  found  themselves  deserted,  as  happened  very  often 
to  those  who  trusted  the  English  queen.  Elizabeth  had 
blustered  before  the  marriage  ;  after  it  she  hesitated ; 
while  Mary,  acting  with  vigorous  decision,  drove  the  re- 
bellious lords  across  the  English  line. 


1565-1567]  THE   ELIZABETHAN   AGE.  315 

But  while  she  thus  defended  her  choice  of  a  husband, 
Mary  was  sickening  of  it  in  her  heart.  Darnley's  hand- 
some person  disguised  a  most  offensive  foolishness  and 
coarseness  of  mind.  Worse  than  quarrels  oc-  Darniey's 
curred,  for  the  husband  was  daily  provoking  character, 
the  wife's  contempt,  and  the  contempt  soon  turned  to 
hate.  In  June,  1566,  the  queen  gave  birth  to  a  son,  and 
her  friends  in  England  as  well  as  her  subjects  in  Scot- 
land were  greatly  rejoiced.  Her  position  in  both  coun- 
tries was  never  so  strong  as  at  that  hour ;  but  her  ruin 
was  near. 

Among  those  who  had  always  stood  by  her,  the  boldest 
and  most  reckless  was  James  Hepburn,  Earl  of  Bothwell. 
Mary  lost  her  heart  to  the  bold  adventurer,  and 

.  .  .  Bothwell. 

with  it  lost  conscience  and  sense.  She  had  a 
husband,  he  had  a  wife  ;  they  planned  to  rid  themselves 
of  both.  Bothwell  obtained  release  from  his  wife  by 
divorce  ;  Mary  sought  the  same  escape  from  Darnley, 
but  found  no  hope.  Whether  she  consented  to  worse 
measures,  or  was  ignorant  of  them,  is  a  question  still  dis- 
puted, but  the  evidence  against  her  is  strong.  Darnley 
was  killed  under  circumstances  in  which  she  acted  a  sus- 
picious part.  What  seemed  to  be  proof  of  her  complicity 
in  the  murder  came  subsequently  to  light,  in  a  bundle  of 
letters,  apparently  her  own  letters  to  Bothwell,  which 
he  had  kept  in  self-defence.  Those  who  doubt  Mary's 
guilt  dispute  the  genuineness  of  these  ''  Casket  T^^g  casket 
Letters,"  as  they  are  known  ;  but  many  impar-  ^^"^^s. 
tial  historians  are  convinced  that  the  letters  were  written 
by  the  Queen  of  Scots,  and  that  her  guilt  is  beyond 
doubt. 

168.  Mary's  Marriage  to  Bothwell,  and  her  Deposi- 
tion. Suspicion  of  Mary's  connivance  in  the  murder  of 
her  husband  was  made  certainty  in  the  public  mind  by 


3l6      RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.       [1567-1568 

her  marriage  to  Bothwell  within  less  than  three  months. 
There  was  a  pretence  of  force  being  used  by  the  daring 
lover  ;  but  her  willingness  in  the  whole  proceeding  seems 
plain.  Then  the  allegiance  of  the  Scots  to  their  queen 
was  cast  off ;  the  affection  of  English  Catholics  and  the 
sympathy  of  all  Catholic  Europe  were  chilled.  After 
a  vain  attempt  to  rally  support,  Bothwell  and  Mary  bade 
farewell  to  each  other  at  Carberry  Hill  (June,  1567),  he 
escaping  to  Denmark  and  she  surrendering  to  the  con- 
federated lords,  who  protected  her  with  difficulty  from 
the  rage  of  the  people,  and  who  nearly  decided  on  their 
own   part  to   put   her  to  death.     Pending  the 

Mary  in  ^   .         .        ^  .  .  *^ 

Lochieven    determination  of  her  fate,  they  imprisoned  her 

CasUe. 

in  Lochieven  Castle,  forced  her  to  sign  an  abdi- 
cation, crowned  her  infant  son,  James  VI.,  and  chose  the 
Earl  of  Murray  to  govern  as  regent  in  his  name. 

At  this  critical  moment  in  Mary  Stuart's  career,  a 
strange  champion  came  to  her  defence  :  no  other,  in  fact, 
than  her  great  rival,  the  English  queen,  who  resented 
furiously  the  attempt  by  subjects  ''  to  call  their  sovereign 
to  account."     Her   interference  probably  saved  Mary's 

life  at  the  time.  It  revived  a  faction  in  the 
to  Eliza-       dethroned  queen's  favor,  by  the  help  of  which 

she  escaped  from  Lochieven  and  put  herself 
at  the  head  of  a  considerable  force ;  but  a  single  battle 
at  Langside  (May,  1568),  near  Glasgow,  scattered  her 
army,  and  Mary  then  fled  to  England,  throwing  herself 
upon  the  hospitality  of  the  rival  who  had  taken  up  her 
cause. 

169.  The  Queen  of  Scots  in  England.  Nothing  could 
have  embarrassed  Queen  Elizabeth  more,  or  driven  her 
to  a  worse  showing  of  the  hesitating  duplicity  of  her  char- 
acter, than  this  action  of  the  Queen  of  Scots.  Refusing 
to   recognize  the  Scottish  regency  or  the  infant   King 


1568-1570]  THE    ELIZABETHAN    AGE.  317 

James,  and  professing  to  maintain  the  queenship  of  Mary- 
Stuart  unimpaired,  she  kept  her  in  England,  neverthe- 
less, neither  avowedly  as  a  prisoner  nor  hospitably  as  a 
guest,  for  nineteen  years.  There  was  no  surer  way  to 
excite  the  interest  of  the  world  and  its  sympathy  for  her 
rival ;  no  surer  way  to  breed  plots  and  intrigues  in  her 
behalf  ;  and  they  followed,  of  course.  In  Scotland,  they 
cost  Murray  his  life.  He  was  shot  by  an  assassin,  in 
1570,  as  he  rode  through  the  street. 

170.  English  Plots  and  Insurrections.  The  first  Eng- 
lish conspiracy,  in  1 569,  was  in  support  of  a  plan  for  the 
marriage  of  Mary  Stuart  to  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  the 
highest  of  the  English  nobles  in  rank.  It  came  to  an 
outbreak  in  the  northern  counties,  but  was  vigorously 
suppressed.  Norfolk  had  taken  no  open  part  in  it,  and 
after  a  short  imprisonment  in  the  Tower  he  was  set  free ; 
but  a  new  and  larger  plot,  to  marry  him  to  the  Queen  of 
Scots  and  to  place  them  unitedly  on  the  English  throne, 
was  soon  on  foot,  with  encouragement  from  the  pope  and 
hope  of  help  from  Philip  of  Spain.  Elizabeth's  vigilant 
ministers  found  it  out,  and  Norfolk's  death  on  the  scaf- 
fold brought  the  project  to  an  end. 

In  the  midst  of  these  conspiracies  (February,  1570), 
and  to  give  them  support,  the  pope  (Pius  V.) 
launched  a  bull  of  deposition  against  Elizabeth,  of  deposi- 
releasing  her  subjects  from  allegiance  to  her  as 
queen.      It  had  none  of  the  intended  effect. 

171.  Foreign  Circumstances  -which  protected  Eng- 
land. In  pursuing  the  remarkable  story  of  the  Queen 
of  Scots,  we  have  left  events  behind  us  to  which  we 
must  now  return. 

The  new  separation  of  the  church  of  England  from 
Rome,  by  Elizabeth,  would  have  been  a  dangerous  chal- 
lenge  to    Catholic    Europe,  and   especially  to  Philip  of 


3i8 


RENAISSANCE    AND    REFORMATION.  [1558-1568 


Spain,  if  circumstances  had  not  singularly  protected  the 
English  queen.  Philip's  hands  were  doubly  tied,  by  his 
jealous  fear  of  France,  and  by  the  work  of  persecution 
and  oppression,  in  Spain  and  the  Netherlands,  which 
chiefly  occupied  his  thoughts.  To  cast  Elizabeth  down 
would  be  to  raise  Mary  Stuart  in  her  place,  and  so  to 

establish  in  Eng- 


land the  influence 
of  France.  How 
could  he  maintain 
his  despotism  in 
the  Low  Coun- 
tries if  England 
and  France,  or 
England  alone, 
should  block  the 
passage  by  sea, 
through  the  Chan- 
nel, from  Span- 
ish to  Dutch  and 
Flemish  ports  ? 
Even  before  the 
brutalities  of  his 
lieutenant,  the 
Duke  of  Alva,  had 
driven  the  des- 
perate provinces 
to  revolt  (1568), 
peace  with  Eng- 
land was  very  nearly  the  greatest  need  in  Philip's  de- 
signs, and  he  was  forced  to  become  actually  the  friend 
and  counsellor  of  Elizabeth  as  against  the  Queen  of  Scots. 
Trouble  with  France,  on  the  other  hand,  was  prevented 
by  the  early  death  of  Mary  Stuart's  husband,  Francis  II., 


THE    NETHERLANDS  :    SHOWING    DUTCH   AND 
SPANISH    POSSESSIONS. 


I558-I568] 


THE    ELIZABETHAN    AGE. 


319 


by  the  displacement  of  her  relatives,  the  Guises,  from 
power,  and  by  the  strife  of  Catholic  and  Huguenot  par- 
ties, soon  breaking  (1562)  into  actual  war.  Elizabeth  had 
no  more  sympathy  with  the  Huguenots,  or  with  ^j^g 
the  Protestants  of  the  Netherlands,  than  with  Huguenots, 
the  reforming  Scots.  She  did  give  some  help  to  the 
Huguenots,  in  1562,  but  she  was  bribed  to  it  by  their 
surrender  to  her  of  the 
port  of  Havre,  which 
she  hoped  to  be  able  to 
exchange  for  Calais.  It 
was  an  unsuccessful 
venture,  and  she  soon 
drew  back. 

Elizabeth's  great  min- 
ister, Cecil,  afterwards 
Lord  Burleigh,  wished 
to  make  England  the 
head  of  a  powerful  Pro- 
testant league,  to  with- 
stand Spanish  designs. 
The    queen   would    not 

have  it  so,  and  her  course,  which  kept  England  in  an 
always  uncertain  neutral  state,  is  thought  by  her  warm 
admirers  to  have  been  due  to  a  clear  foresight  of  the 
prosperity  and  strength  which  the  country  gained  during 
a  long  period  of  peace.  But  her  conduct  seems  Elizabeth's 
rather  to  have  been  that  of  an  irresolute  though  neutrality, 
courageous  mind,  wavering  between  influences  that 
moved  her  dislike,  or  her  vanity,  or  her  temper,  on  one 
side,  and  her  really  good  sense  on  the  other.  As  for 
principle,  there  is  little  to  be  discovered  in  Queen  Eliza- 
beth by  those  who  praise  her  most. 

172.  The  Jesuit  Mission.     The  Society  of  Jesus,  an 


SIR    WILLIAM    CECIL. 


320  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1577-1584 

enemy  more  formidable  than  Philip,  entered  the  field 
against  Elizabeth  at  about  the  middle  of  her  reign. 
Catholic  missionaries  from  an  English  seminary  estab- 
lished at  Douay,  in  northern  France,  had  been  working 
secretly  in  England,  and  one  of  them  was  executed,  in 
1577,  for  bringing  into  the  country  a  papal  bull.  This 
roused  instead  of  checking  the  missionary  spirit  in  the 
Catholic  church,  and  the  Jesuits,  then  young  as  an  order, 
came  forward  with  ardor  to  join  the  Seminarists  in  their 
perilous  work. 

Probably  some  of  the  missionaries  were  enlisted  in 
plots  against  the  crown,  if  not  against  the  life,  of  the 
queen  ;  while  others  worked  with  purely  religious  aims. 
But  the  government  pursued  them  all  alike,  as  conspira- 
tors and  traitors,  and  dealt  with  all  who  concealed  and 
abetted  them  in  the  same  undiscriminating  way.  It  is 
Use  of  the  disgrace  of  Elizabeth's  reign  that  torture, 
torture.  which  had  rarely  been  employed  by  English 
courts,  to  wring  confession  and  disclosure  from  persons 
accused,  and  which  had  never  been  sanctioned  by  Eng- 
lish law,  was  systematically  used  in  these  prosecutions 
for  the  first  time. 

In  Catholic  eyes,  the  whole  pursuit  of  the  Jesuits  and 
the  seminary  priests,  and  of  those  who  gave  them  hospi- 
tality, was  a  religious  persecution  ;  while  the  English 
government  claimed  to  be  simply  defending  itself  against 
political  attacks.  There  is  evidently  truth  in  both  views. 
The  prosecution  of  the  missionaries  and  their  Catholic 
friends  was  undeniably  a  very  cruel  persecution,  and  the 
motives  in  it  were  both  political  and  religious, 

Persecu-  ,  ^ 

tionofthe    darklv  mixed.     Undeniably,  too,  there  was  an 

Catholics.  ■'  ...  .    . 

equally  dark  mixing  of  religious  and  political 
purposes  on  the  Catholic  side.  As  to  the  number  of 
Catholics  who  suffered  death  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  there 


15S4-1586]  THE   ELIZABETHAN    AGE.  32 1 

is  no  trustworthy  account.  Statements  vary  so  widely 
as  between  35  and  200.  Many  died  in  prison  ;  many 
were  impoverished  ;  many  fled. 

173.  The  Babington  Plot  and  the  Execution  of  Mary- 
Stuart.  Treasonable  plotting  was  not  lessened,  but  in- 
creased, by  the  severe  measures  of  the  government  ;  and 
PhilijD  of  Spain,  like  a  venomous  spider,  was  at  the  centre 
of  the  great  web  of  intrigue.  Assassination  was  one  of 
his  political  arts.  He  used  it  in  July,  1584,  to  rid  himself 
of  William  the  Silent,  Prince  of  Orange,  in  the  Nether- 
lands. He  was  now  ready  to  have  Elizabeth  removed  in 
like  manner,  even  though  Mary  Stuart  took  her  place  ; 
for  war  between  England  and  Spain  had  been  practically 
begun. 

Fears  for  the  queen  became  so  lively  in  England  after 
the  murder  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  that  a  great  national 
association  was  formed,  pledged  to  "prosecute  to  the 
death  any  pretended  successor  "  in  whose  favor  "  any  act 
or  counsel  to  the  harm  of  the  queen's  person  "  Fgg^j,g  ^^j. 
should  be  attempted.  The  same  declaration  ^^^  queen, 
was  embodied  soon  afterwards  in  an  act  of  Parliament, 
as  a  warning  and  menace  to  the  partisans  of  the  Queen 
of  Scots. 

But  the  conspiracy  of  assassination  was  not  given  up. 
It  had  gone  so  far,  in  the  summer  of  1586,  that  men  in 
the  household  of  Oueen  Elizabeth  were  enlisted  to  take 
part.  At  the  same  time,  every  move  in  it  was  known  to 
Sir  Francis  Walsingham,  the  queen's  vigilant  secretary 
of  state,  whose  spies  were  in  the  enemy's  camp.  Wal- 
singham was  accused  afterwards,  in  fact,  of  hav-  waismg- 
ing  connived  at  the  plot  until  Mary  Stuart  could  ^^°^- 
be  caught  in  its  fatal  mesh.  It  is  still  a  question  in  some 
doubt  whether  the  unhappy  Mary  was  or  was  not  a  con- 
senting  party  to  the  plan   for  taking   Elizabeth's  life. 


322  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1586-1587 

With  Walsingham's  connivance,  letters  passed  between 
the  captive  queen  and  one  Babington,  the  chief  actor  in 
the  conspiracy,  and  they  seem  to  leave  no  doubt  that 
murderous  intentions  in  the  scheme  were  understood  by 
both.  But  those  who  think  Mary  innocent  believe  that 
Walsingham  tampered  with  what  she  wrote,  in  order  to 
bring  about  her  death. 

Elizabeth  now  yielded,  with  a  reluctance  that  was 
doubtless  sincere,  to  the  demand  of  her  council  that 
the  Queen  of  Scots  should  be  tried  for  complicity  in  the 
plot.  But  when  the  trial  had  taken  place,  when  the  ver- 
dict of  guilt  had  been  pronounced,  when  she  had  signed 
a  death  warrant  with  her  own  hand,  and  when  Mary,  ir 
obedience  to  it,  had  been  brought  to  the  blocli 
execution  then  Elizabeth  showed  surprise,  grief,  and  ange.. 
at  what  had  been  done,  raging  against  her  coun- 
cil for  having  executed  the  warrant,  and  sending  one  of 
her  secretaries  to  a  long  imprisonment  because  he  had 
delivered  it,  as  she  must  have  intended  him  to  do. 

Mary  Stuart  was  beheaded  at  Fotheringay  Castle,  on 
the  8th  of  February,  1587,  displaying  remarkable  courage 
and  dignity  at  the  last. 

174.  Conflict  with  Spain  and  Beginnings  of  English 
Sea-power.  The  execution  of  Mary  Stuart  practically 
ended  hope  among  the  English  Catholics  of  a  succession 
to  the  crown  that  would  restore  their  church.  Nothing, 
after  Mary's  death,  could  be  expected  to  accomplish  that, 
except  foreign  conquest  —  Spanish  conquest  —  which  no 
great  number  of  Catholic  Englishmen  was  ready  to  ac- 
cept. But  abroad,  in  Catholic  Europe,  hostility  to  Eliza- 
beth was  lashed  to  a  new  rage.  Philip  of  Spain  was  set 
free  to  act  against  her,  in  his  own  interest,  as  a  champion 
of  the  church,  commissioned  to  win  the  English  king- 
dom by  conquest  for  himself. 


I572-I585] 


THE   ELIZABETHAN   AGE. 


323 


Mary's  execution  cannot  be  called  the  cause  of  war 
between  Spain  and  England,  because  war  had  long  ex- 
isted as  a  fact,  though  never  acknowledged  to  be  war. 
That  singular  state  of  things  is  not  easily  understood  at 
the  present  day.  It  was  something  out  of  the  anarchy 
of  the  Middle  Ages  that  had  not  yet  been  overcome. 


QUEEN    ELIZABETH    CARRIED    IN    STATE    TO    HUNSDON    HOUSE. 


On  land,  in  western  Europe,  a  civilized  order,  under  law- 
ful authority,  was  fast  taking  some  settled  form  ;  but  the 
ocean  was  still  a  barbarous  domain,  where  no  Lawless- 
authority  ruled,  where  no  law  prevailed.  War,  ^essatsea. 
piracy,  and  sea-voyaging  trade  were  hardly  known  apart. 
Governments  neither  gave  much  protection  to  their  sub- 
jects at  sea  nor  exercised  much  control  over  them.  If 
traders  of  one  nation,  or  one  town,  suffered  wrong  from 
citizens  of  another  town  or  country,  they  commonly  took 
redress  into  their  own  hands,  and  made  such  retaliations 


324  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1572-1585 

as  they  pleased.  If  some  attacked  others  without  provo- 
cation, there  were  none  to  watch  their  doings.  Thus 
hostihties  at  sea  which  might  be  called  piracy,  or  priva- 
teering, or  commercial  self-defence,  according  to  the 
view,  were  always  going  on. 

As  religious  and  political  animosities  between  the  Eng- 
lish and  the  Spaniards  grew  more  bitter,  such  hostilities 
increased.  Both  the  English  and  the  Dutch  disputed 
and  resented  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  claim  to  exclu- 
sive rights  in  the  New  World  and  in  the  East,  and  they 
had  no  scruple  as  to  the  means  by  which  they  broke  it 
English  down.  The  English  were  as  active  in  the  work 
?o°ward^^^  as  the  Dutch,  and  their  government  more  than 
Spain.  winked  at  what  they  did.  It  was  then  that 
English  seamanship  began  to  be  really  trained,  and  the 
adventurous  English  spirit  to  be  fully  roused. 

As  early  as  1562,  the  famous  John  Hawkins,  afterwards 
Sir  John,  thrust  himself  into  the  Spanish  slave  trade, 
finally  employing  a  strong  fleet,  and  compelling  the 
Spanish  commanders  of  West  Indian  ports  to  admit  his 
cargoes  of  negro  captives  and  allow  them  to  be  sold. 
From  this  kind  of  slave  trading  to  more  piratical  private 
warfare  the  step  was  easy,  and  it  was  soon  taken  by 
such  bold  adventurers  as  the  redoubtable  Francis  Drake. 
Francis  ^or  morc  than  a  dozen  years  before  England 
Drake.  .^^^  Spain  wcrc  avowedly  at  war,  Drake  and 
others  attacked  Spanish-American  settlements,  fought 
Spanish  warships,  plundered  Spanish  treasure  ships,  and 
shared  the  spoil  with  English  courtiers,  and  even  with 
the  English  queen.  In  1577,  Drake  set  sail  on  a  mem- 
orable voyage,  which  followed  the  route  of  Magellan  to 
the  Pacific,  gathered  booty  along  the  whole  Peruvian 
coast,  and  then  circled  homeward  by  the  Cape,  of  Good 
Hope,  having  rounded  the  globe. 


1585-1587]  THE   ELIZABETHAN   AGE.  325 

175.  Aid  to  the  Dutch  Provinces.  The  undeclared 
war  between  England  and  Spain  may  be  said  to  have 
reached  an  open  state  in  1585,  when  Elizabeth  was  at 
last  persuaded  to  send  a  few  troops  to  the  help  of  the 
struggling  people  of  the  Dutch  Netherlands.  The  south- 
ern or  Flemish  provinces  had  been  overcome  already  by 
the  power  of  Spain.  The  Dutch  provinces  in  the  north 
were  fighting  with  the  last  of  their  strength.  If  they 
fell,  nothing  would  stand  any  longer  between  England 
and  the  formidable  Spanish  king.  Yet,  even  in  that  ex- 
tremity, Elizabeth  haggled  with  the  provinces  for  months 
over  the  price  they  should  pay  her  for  a  few  thousand 
troops,  and  the  security  they  should  give.  They  offered 
her  the  sovereignty  of  their  country,  which  she  would 
not  accept.  In  the  end,  she  took  Flushing  and  Brill  to 
hold  in  pawn,  and  sent  the  incompetent  Leicester,  with 
a  body  of  ill-furnished  and  unpaid  men,  to  trouble  the 
Dutch  more  than  to  help  them,  and  to  make  a  pitiful 
showing  of  her  parsimony,  her  arrogant  egotism,  and 
her  inability  to  let  any  undertaking  be  made  complete. 
Individual  Englishmen  gave  splendid  service  to  the  cause 
of  Dutch  freedom ;  Sir  Philip  Sidney  consecrated  it  by 
an  heroic  death  ;  but  the  brave  Hollanders  owed  little 
thanks  to  Elizabeth  for  the  independence  they  finally 
won. 

176.  The  Great  Armada.  Philip  II.  had  long  been 
fumbling  with  plans  for  the  invasion  of  England,  and 
after  the  execution  of  Mary  Stuart  he  took  them  ear- 
nestly in  hand.  The  war  then  became  undisguised.  Eng- 
lish pirates  became  commissioned  privateers,  and  swarmed 
in  thickening  numbers  over  the  sea.  Drake  was  still 
chief  among  them,  and  worried  the  King  of  Spain  with 
wonderful  success.  In  the  spring  of  1587,  he  sailed  into 
the  harbor  of  Cadiz,  where  part  of  Philip's  fleet  was  being 


326         RENAISSANCE  AND   REFORMATION.  [1587-1588 

fitted  out,  and  destroyed  fifty  or  sixty  ships,  doing  damage 
which  is  said  to  have  delayed  the  intended  expedition  for 
a  year.  This  he  called  "  singeing  the  King  of  Spain's 
beard." 

Philip's  preparations  were  finished  in  the  following 
summer,  and  a  fleet,  proudly  called  "  the  Invincible 
Armada,"  being  apparently  the  most  formidable  that  the 
world  had  yet  seen,  set  sail  for  the  English  coast.  Then 
the  English  people  showed  the  stuff  of  which  they  were 
made.  It  was  by  no  energy  or  efficiency  in  their  govern- 
ment, but  by  their  own  roused  spirit  and  practical  com- 
petency, that  they  were  ready  to  repel  the  mighty  attack. 
The  whole  nation  except  its  queen  seems  to  have  risen 
to  the  demands  of  the  hour.  Official  preparation  for 
defence  was  hand-tied  by  the  niggardliness  of  Elizabeth, 
English  who  piuchcd  evcu  the  food  of  the  sailors  on  her 
ticn?for  ships  ;  but  citizens  and  cities,  shipowners  and 
defence.  sailors,  fishermen  and  farmers,  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  vied  with  each  other  in  eager  volunteering. 
Religious  differences  were  forgotten  ;  it  was  a  united 
nation  of  Englishmen  that  rose  to  face  the  invasion  from 
Spain.  The  queen  contributed  brave  speeches  and  an 
intrepid  bearing,  which  had  their  effect ;  but  they  were 
worth  something  less  than  the  private  vigor  and  liberal- 
ity that  got  the  country  under  arms,  on  shipboard  and 
on  land. 

On  the  29th  of  July,  the  lumbering  and  ill-managed 
Armada  was  sighted  from  the  English  coast,  and  skirmish- 
ing attacks  upon  it  were  begun.  Drake,  Howard,  Haw- 
kins, Frobisher,  and  most  of  the  great  sea-captains  of  the 
age,  were  in  the  lead  of  the  English  fleet,  with  scores  of 
volunteers  like  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  under  their  command. 
For  one  full  week  a  running  fight  was  kept  up,  while 
the  Armada  slowly  made  its  way  to  Calais  roads.     There 


,588] 


THE   ELIZABETHAN   AGE. 


327 


SPANISH  ARMADA  ATTACKED  BY  THE  ENGLISH  FLEET. 

it  waited  in  vain  for  an  expedition  from  the  Netherlands, 
which  the  Dutch  had  blocked  up  ;  and  there  its  The  great 
doom  fell  upon  it.  Gathered  in  growing  num-  '^^^®^*- 
hers  outside,  the  EngUsh  sent  fireships  into  the  midst  of 
the  clumsy  Spanish  fleet,  and  a  fatal  panic  arose.  Cables 
were  wildly  cut  and  all  command  of  the  drifting  ships  was 
lost.  Some  were  entangled  together,  some  went  ashore, 
some  were  burned  ;  the  greater  number  were  carried  up 
the  coast,  scattered  by  the  wind  and  pursued  by  the  Eng- 
lish, to  be  captured,  or  to  be  driven  on  the  sandbanks 
of  Holland,  or  to  make  a  long  and  desperate  flight  north- 
ward, around  Scotland  into  the  Atlantic,  through  storm 
after  storm,  and  to  strew  all  the  western  coasts  of  the 
British  isles  with  wrecks.  "  Of  1 34  vessels  which  sailed 
from  Coruna  in  July,  but  53,  great  and  small,  made  their 
escape  to  Spain."  "  Of  the  30,000  men  who  sailed  in  the 
fleet,  it  is  probable  that  not  more  than  10,000  ever  saw 
their  native  land  as^ain."  ^ 

With  the  destruction  of  the  Armada  all  real  danger  to 
England  from  the  enmities  which  Philip  represented  was 

1  Motley,  I/is^.  of  the  United  Netherlands^  vol.  ii.  ch.  xix. 


328  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1553-1583 

at  an  end.  It  was  securely  a  Protestant  nation  from  that 
day,  and  securely  a  rising  power,  destined  to  play  an 
important  part  in  the  future  of  the  world.  If  the  roused 
temper  of  the  country  had  had  its  way,  it  would  have 
Result  for  presscd  the  war  with  Spain  to  some  sharp  con- 
Engiand.  clusiou  ;  pcrhaps  to  the  shattering  then  and 
there  of  the  Spanish  dominion  in  America,  which  Drake, 
and  Raleigh,  and  many  more  were  eager  to  undertake. 
But  Elizabeth  would  not  have  it  so,  and  the  war  went  on 
in  a  way  that  gave  little  new  fruit. 

177.  Exploration,  and  the  Beginnings  of  Coloniza- 
tion. The  new  sense  of  strength  in  the  nation  that 
followed  the  defeat  of  the  Armada  was  everywhere  felt. 
There  had  been  some  stir  of  enterprise  before,  even  in 
the  reign  of  Mary,  when  Willoughby  and  Chancellor 
attempted  to  find  a  northeastern  arctic  passage,  beyond 
Norway,  to  China,  or  Cathay,  with  the  result  of  an  open- 
ing of  Russian  trade,  pushed  thence  by  routes  overland 
into  the  heart  of  the  Asiatic  world.  Later,  by  almost  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  Frobisher,  in  1576,  began  the  search 
for  a  northwestern  passage  to  Cathay  ;  while  Drake,  at 
the  same  time,  was  sailing  more  successfully  the  south- 
western route  to  the  same  goal,  and  circumnavigating 
the  globe.  The  year  (1578)  in  which  Drake  passed  the 
Straits  of  Magellan  was  the  year  in  which  England's 
claim  to  a  share  in  the  possession  of  the  New  World  was 

first  put  forth,  in  a  patent  issued  to  Sir  Hum- 
Humphrey   phrcy  Gilbert  "  for  the  inhabiting  and  planting 

of  our  own  people  in  America."  Gilbert's  at- 
tempt, in  1583,  under  this  patent,  to  found  a  colony  in 
Newfoundland,  failed,  and  he  lost  his  life  in  the  returning 

voyage.     His  step-brother.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 

succeeded  no  better,  under  a  similar  patent,  the 
next  year ;  but  from  that  time  on  there  was  a  steady 


1558-1603]  THE    ELIZABETHAN    AGE.  329 

hardening  of  the  determmation  to  dispute  possession  of 
America  with  Spain. 

Colonizing  waited  a  Httle,  but  exploration  went  on, 
and  trading  enterprises  were  pushed  farther  and  farther 
afield.  A  Levant  Company,  incorporated  in  1581,  soon 
reached  India  in  its  operations,  by  way  of  the  Persian 
Gulf ;  and  in    1600  the   East   India  Company, 

The  East 

w4iich   rose  afterwards  to  such  greatness  and  India 
power,  was  first  formed.     The  Dutch  had  moved     °^^^^^- 
faster  than  the  English,  and  led  them  as  yet  in  most 
fields  ;  but  the  latter  were  crowding  them  hard  before 
the  close  of  Elizabeth's  reign. 

178.  Prosperity  and  Distress.  A  great  but  unequal 
improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  country  went  on 
throughout  the  reign.  It  was  due  to  several  causes,  but 
especially  to  the  restoration  of  an  honest  coinage,  which 
was  probably  the  wisest  of  all  the  measures  that  Eliza- 
beth was  ever  persuaded  by  her  able  ministers  to  under- 
take. Without  it,  nothing  else  could  have  brought  pros- 
perity back.  In  two  ways,  moreover,  there  were  great 
gains  to  England  from  the  dreadful  sufferings  of  the 
Flemish  Netherlands  :  large  numbers  of  skilled  artisans, 
escaping  from  Spanish  tyranny,  came  to  settle  in  English 
towns,  and  a  profitable  share  of  the  trade  which  Philip's 
armies  drove  away  from  the  Netherlands  fell  into  Eng- 
lish hands.  For  nearly  half  a  century,  England  was 
sufficiently  at  peace  to  gather  from  all  these  sources  an 
enormous  srain. 

But  the  laboring  classes,  unhappily,  got  no  fair  share 
of  the  increasing  w^ealth.     Wages  advanced  more  slowly 
than  prices,  as  happens  always,  and  the  cost  of  The  wage- 
living  was  harder  for  wage-earners  to  bear.     In  e^^^^^s. 
the  midst  of  a  prosperous  era  for  the  upper  and  middle 
classes  there  was   much  distress  in  the  lower  ranks  of 


330  RENAISSANCE   AND    REFORMATION.  [1558-1603 


EDMUND    SPENSER. 


life,  and  the  framing  of  Eng- 
lish poor  laws,  for  the  main- 
tenance of  charity  by  public 
taxation,  was  begun. 

179.  The  Great  Age  of 
English  Literature.  Of  the 
marvellous  outburst  of  English 
literary  genius  that  began  in 
the  later  third  of  Oueen  Eliza- 
beth's  reign,  what  can  be  said 
fitly  in  so  limited  a  book  as 
this  ?  All  the  world-wakening 
influences  that  sprang,  in  the  preceding  century,  from 
the  invention  of  printing  and  the  discovery  of  America, 
seem  to  have  concentrated  their  intellectual  effects,  in 
England,  upon  the  little  period  of  forty  years  that  lie 
between  the  beginning  of  Spenser's  ''  Faerie  Oueene,"  in 
1589,  and  the  writing  of  Milton's  first  great  poem,  the 
"  Hymn  on  the  Nativity,"  in  1629.  Within  that  brief 
space  of  time  the  whole  of  Shakespeare's  work  was  done, 
the  whole  of  Bacon's,  Sidney's,  Marlowe's,  Beaumont's 
and  Fletcher's,  Middleton's, 
Webster's,  Daniel's  ;  the  writ- 
ings of  Raleigh  and  the  splen- 
did prose  of  Hooker  were 
produced  ;  Chapman,  Ben  Jon- 
son,  and  Drayton  were  yield- 
ing their  best  ;  Hobbes,  the 
philosopher,  grew  to  manhood 
and  Oliver  Cromwell  to  middle 
life  ;  Bunyan,  Fuller,  Walton, 
Jeremy  Taylor,  George  Her- 
bert, Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
Herrick,      Massinger,      Lord 


RICHARD    HOOKER, 


1558-1603] 


THE   ELIZABETHAN   AGE. 


331 


WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE. 


Clarendon,  were  in  child- 
hood or  in  youth.  It  was 
a  marvellous  period,  and  a 
third  of  it  lies  within  Eliza- 
beth's reign. 

180.  The  Rise  of  the 
Puritans,  Presbyterians, 
and  Independents.  From 
the  beginning  of  Elizabeth's 
reign,  a  large  section  of  the 
English  Protestants  had 
been  dissatisfied  with  the 
constitution  of  the  church 
that  she  established,  or 
with  the  creed  and  ritual  that  she  dictated  to  it,  or  with 
both.  They  had  been  silenced  by  measures  almost  as 
harsh  as  the  measures  which  suppressed  Catholic  dis- 
content ;  but  their  numbers  grew.  For  the  most  part, 
at  the  beginning,  the  objection  of  dissenting  Protestants 
was  to  the  ceremonies  and 
vestments  which  the  queen 
forced  them  to  retain  in 
public  worship,  and  to 
which  all  must  conform. 
They  contended  for  more 
simplicity,  more  '*  purity," 
as  they  phrased  it,  of 
worship,  and  that  phrase 
finally  caused  the  name 
"  Puritans  "to  be  giv^en  to 
them. 

Along  with  these  Puri- 
tans were  others  who  went 
farther,    objecting  to  the  francis  bacon. 


332  RENAISSANCE  AND   REFORMATION.  [1558-1603 

whole  government  of  the  English  church.  A  large  and 
growing  party  wished  to  bring  in  the  Genevan  or  Pres- 
byterian church  system,  framed  by  Calvin,  having  no 
bishops,  but  governed  by  synods  and  assemblies,  in  a 
republican  mode.  Their  ideas  were  extremely  hateful, 
of  course,  to  the  imperious  queen.  Still  another  but 
much  smaller  party  maintained  the  right  of  each  Chris- 
tian congregation  to  govern  itself,  with  interference  from 
none,  even  of  its  own  kind.  These  were  called  Brownists 
at  first,  from  the  name  of  their  leader,  but  afterwards 
Independents  or  Separatists.  They  were  persecuted,  in 
1592,  so  savagely,  six  being  put  to  death,  that  they 
were  supposed  to  have  been  suppressed  ;  but  the  sect, 
or  its  distins^uishing  doctrine,  survived,  and  six- 

The  &  t>  '  ' 

Pilgrim  tccu  vcars  later  (1608)  an  Independent  consfre- 
of  New  gation,  driven  by  renewed  persecution  irom 
ng  an  .  Scrooby,  in  Nottinghamshire,  to  Holland,  formed 
there  the  company  which  migrated,  in  1620,  to  America, 
—  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  of  New  England. 

For  the  enforcement  of  despotic  measures  of  church 
government  a  tribunal,  called  the  Court  of  High  Com- 
mission, was  created,  which  exercised  fearful  powers 
after  1583,  and  which  became  an  intolerable  instrument 
of  oppression,  then  and  in  the  following  reigns.  Puri- 
tanism, Presbyterianism,  and  Independency  were  all  stim- 
ulated in  their  growth  by  the  queen's  attempts 
High  Com-  to  put  them  down,  and  the  rousing  of  an  inde- 
pendent feeling  in  religious  matters  woke  up 
the  political  spirit  that  had  been  dormant  for  so  long  a 
time.  The  democratic  temper  in  English  blood  began 
to  be  stirred  once  more.  In  every  succeeding  House 
of  Commons  elected  under  Elizabeth  the  Puritan  party 
showed  a  growing  courage  and  strength. 

The  last  Parliament  that  was  held  (1601)  before  Eliza- 


1558-1603]  THE    ELIZABETHAN    AGE.  333 

beth  died,  drew  from  her  an  unaccustomed  tribute  of 
respect  for  its  voice.  She  had  long  been  oppressing  the 
country  by  grants  of  "monopoly"  to  favorite  courtiers, 
whom  she  wished  to  reward  without  cost  to  herself. 
Such  a  grant  allowed  the  holder  to  control  the  sale  of 
some  article,  on  which  he  could,  accordingly,  extort  his 
own  price.     It  was  one  of  the  most  detestable 

r     1  -1  T^     T  1  Monopoly. 

of  despotic  schemes,  rarliament  was  about  to 
pass  an  act  boldly  prohibiting  such  monopolies,  when  the 
queen  sent  an  amiable  message,  announcing  that  the 
grievance  should  be  removed.  This  seems  to  have  been 
the  first  positive  step  taken  by  the  English  Parliament 
towards  the  recovery  of  its  old  constitutional  place  in 
the  government. 

181.  Ireland.  The  blind  and  heartless  treatment  of 
Ireland  was  never  worse  than  durino^  Oueen  Elizabeth's 
reign.  She  renewed  her  father's  attempt  to  force  the 
church  of  England  on  the  country,  with  services  in  the 
English  language,  which  few  outside  of  the  English  Pale 
could  understand.  There  was  seemingly  no  thought  of 
attempting  to  recommend  the  new  form  of  worship  by 
persuasion  or  explanation  of  any  sort. 

In  other  matters  the  misgovernment  was  on  the  same 
lines,  keeping  animosities  alive,  cultivating  feuds,  provok- 
ing revolts.  A  succession  of  formidable  rebellions  oc- 
curred, led  either  by  the  O'Neils  of  Ulster,  whom  Henry 
VIII.  had  made  Earls  of  Tyrone,  or  by  the  Norman 
Geraldines  of  the  south,  whose  chief  had  become  Earl 
of  Desmond  in  the  late  creation  of  Irish  peers.  In  1599, 
the  Earl  of  Essex,  who  had  been  the  chief  favorite  of 
the  queen  since  the  death  of  his  step-father,  Eariof 
Leicester,  was  sent  to  Ireland  as  lord-lieuten-  ^^sex. 
ant,  with  extraordinary  powers.  His  management  of 
affairs  was  disappointing,  and  he  angered  the  haughty 


334  RENAISSANCE  AND   REFORMATION.  [1601-1603 

queen  by  returning  to  England  without  leave.  Seeing 
that  her  favor  was  lost  and  that  his  enemies  were  likely 
to  cause  his  ruin,  he  recklessly  undertook  to  excite  an 
armed  demonstration  in  London  against  them,  which 
miserably  failed.  He  was  then  arrested,  tried  for  trea- 
son, and  executed  (February,  1601).  The  queen  is  said 
to  have  shown  great  remorse  afterwards  on  account  of 
his  death. 

182.  Death  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Her  life  was  now 
drawing  to  a  close,  and  she  suffered  much  at  the  last  in 
body  and  mind.  Her  final  illness  came  upon  her  in  the 
spring  of  1603,  and  she  died  on  the  24th  of  March,  in 
the  seventieth  year  of  her  age  and  the  forty-fifth  of  her 
reign.  On  her  deathbed,  for  the  first  time,  she  indicated 
her  wish  that  James  of  Scotland,  son  of  Mary  Stuart, 
should  be  her  successor  on  the  throne. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

160.  The  Accession  of  Elizabeth. 
Topics. 

1.  Public  feeling  about  Elizabeth. 

2.  Great  issues  to  be  decided. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  428. 

161.  The  Character  of  Elizabeth  and  her  Reign. 

Topics. 

1.  The  situation  and  her  courage  in  facing  it. 

2.  Her  character  and  her  love  for  England. 
Reference.  —  Green,  369-379. 

162.  The  New  Reformation  of  the  Church. 

Topics. 

1.  Appointment  of  Cecil  and  Elizabeth's  proclamation. 

2.  The  new  Acts  of  Supremacy  and  of  Uniformity. 

3.  Attitude  of  the  clergy  and  people  toward  them. 
References.  —  Bright,   ii.   488-494.      Acts   of   Uniformity   and 

Supremacy:  (lardiner,  ii.  429;  Bright,  ii.  493,  494;  Green,  377; 
Traill,  iii.  312,  314:  Taswell-Langmead,  441,  442. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.     335 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)Why  had  it  become  difficult  to  make 
religious  changes?  (Creighton,  iii.)  (2.)  From  what  three  causes 
did  Elizabeth  fear  trouble  ?  (Bright,  ii.  489,  490.)  (3.)  How  was 
she  enabled  to  play  them  off,  one  against  another?  (Guest,  431, 
433,  434.)  (4.)  What  became  in  time  the  corner-stone  of  her  for- 
eign policy?  (Beesly,  loi.)  (5.)  Trace  the  changes  in  the  church 
in  England  from  Henry  VI I. 's  appointment  of  Cardinal  Morton 
to  office  under  him,  through  Wolsey,  Cromwell,  Cranmer,  and 
Gardiner,  down  to  Elizabeth's  time.  (Montague,  ill,  112.)  (6.) 
What  was  the  position  of  the  church  as  a  whole  under  Elizabetli  ? 
(Traill,  iii.  308-310.) 

163.  The  Question  of  the  Queen's  Marriage. 

Topics. 

1.  The  importance  of  it. 

2.  Her  treatment  of  the  subject  and  her  suitors. 
Reference.  —  Beesly's  Queen  Elizabeth,  ch.  iv. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  justified  EHzabeth  in  neither 
marrying  nor  naming  a  successor?  (Ransome,  115,  116;  Green, 
384.)  (2.)  What  novel  of  Scott  shows  her  attitude  toward  Leices- 
ter, and  the  sort  of  entertainment  in  which  she  delighted  ? 

164.  Elizabeth  and  Mary  Stuart. 
Topics. 

1.  Mary's  claims  and  England's  objections  to  her. 

2.  Changed  feeling  toward  Mary  as  Queen  of  Scotland. 

3.  Mary  and  Elizabeth  contrasted. 
References. —  Beesly,  ch.  iv. ;  Creighton,  68,  69. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  did  Mary's  claim  contravene 

Henry  VIII.'s  will?  (Gardiner,  ii,  435.)  (2.)  What  greater  sig- 
nificance has  the  rivalry  between  the  two  queens  than  claims  to 
the  throne?  (Gardiner,  ii.  436.)  (3.)  What  effect  did  Mary's 
claim  have  on  English  foreign  relations  ? 

165.  The  Reformation  in  Scotland. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Catholic  church  in  Scotland. 

2.  The  Lords  of  the  Congregation  and  John  Knox. 

3.  The  uprising  against  the  church. 

4.  Appeal  to  Elizabeth  and  success  of  revolt. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  495-498. 


33^  THE    ELIZABETHAN   AGE. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Contrast  the  course  of  the  Reforma- 
tion in  Scotland  and  in  England.  (Gardiner,  ii.  434.)  (2.)  Why 
were  the  English  people  less  restive  under  the  change  ?  (Mon- 
tague, 107.) 

166.  Mary  Stuart  in  Scotland. 
Topics. 

1.  Mary's  attitude  toward  <7,  religion  ;  b^  Queen  Elizabeth. 

2.  Controversy  over  her  marriage. 
Reference.  —  Creighton,  d^-TS' 

167.  Mary's  Marriage  to  Darnley,  and  his  Murder. 
Topics. 

1.  Revolt  provoked  by  her  marriage  with  Darnley  and  its  results. 

2.  Birth  of  Mary's  heir. 

3.  Infatuation  for  Bothwell  and  murder  of  Darnley. 

4.  Proofs  of  Mary's  guilt. 
Reference.  —  Creighton,  72-78. 

168.  Mary's  Marriage  to  Bothwell,  and  her  Deposition. 

Topics. 

1.  Effect  of  the  marriage  on  the  people. 

2.  Imprisonment  in  Lochleven  castle. 

3.  Elizabeth's  interference  and  Mary's  arrival  in  England. 
Reference.  —  Creighton,  78-82. 

169.  The  Queen  of  Scots  in  England. 
Topic. 

I.  Vacillating  policy  of  Elizabeth  and  its  results. 
Reference.  —  Green,  388,  389. 

170.  English  Plots  and  Insurrections. 
Topics. 

1.  Two  plots  for  the  marriage  of  Mary  and  the  Duke  of  Norfolk. 

2.  Papal  bull  of  deposition. 
Reference.  —  Green,  389-392. 

171.  Foreign  Circumstances  which  protected  England. 
Topics. 

1.  Circumstances  which  kept  Philip  of  Spain  friendly. 

2.  Conditions  in  France. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.     337 

3.  Cecil's  design  and  Elizabeth's  course. 
References.  —  Beesly,  ch.  vi.    The  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew  : 
Gardiner,  ii.  449;  Bright,  ii.  526-528;   Creighton,  1 18-127. 

172.  The  Jesuit  Mission. 
Topics. 

1.  Seminary  at  Douay  and  its  Jesuit  allies. 

2.  Persecution  of  the  Jesuits  by  Elizabeth. 

3.  Difference  of  view  as  to  this  persecution. 

References.  —  Beesly,  ch.  vii.  The  Jesuits  :  Gardiner,  ii.  453- 
456;  Bright,  ii.  546-549;  Creighton,  159-166;  Green,  408-410; 
Beesly,  ch.  vii. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  was  the  English  feeling  about 
torture?  (Beesly,  143-145;  Taswell-Langmead,  453,  footnote.) 
(2.)  What  experience  among  English  sailors  might  have  made 
people  acquiesce  in  its  use  against  Jesuits?     (Gardiner,  ii.  447.) 

173.  The  Babington  Plot  and  the  Execution  of  Mary- 

Stuart. 
Topics. 

1.  Renewed  intrigues  and  association  to  protect  the  queen. 

2.  Plot  to  assassinate  the  queen. 

3.  Mary's  complicity  and  execution. 
Reference.  —  Beesly,  ch.  ix. 

174.  Conflict  with  Spain  and  Beginnings  of  English 

Sea-power. 
Topics. 

1.  Effect   of   Mary's   execution:  a^  upon  English   Catholics;  b^ 

upon  Phihp  of  Spain. 

2.  State  of  war  and  lawlessness  upon  the  sea. 

3.  English  and  Dutch  dispute  Spanish  and  Portuguese  claims  in 

the  New  World. 

4.  John  Hawkins  and  Francis  Drake. 
References.  —  Green,  411-416;  Creighton,  173,  iSi,  193. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  claim  to  the  Enghsh  throne 

did  Philip  put  forth  on  the  death  of  Mary?  (Gardiner,  ii.  458.) 
(2.)  In  what  way  had  Elizabeth  given  him  further  offense? 
(Creighton,  116.)  (3.)  What  position  was  Elizabeth  forced  to 
take  toward  the  Protestants  by  Philip's  attack?  (Bright,  ii.  519, 
520. 


338  THE    ELIZABETHAN    AGE. 

175.  Aid  to  the  Dutch  Provinces. 

Topics. 

1.  Elizabeth  grudgingly  helps  the  Dutch. 

2.  Individual  service  to  the  cause  of  Dutch  freedom. 
References.  —  Creighton,  167-174;  Green,  400. 

176.  The  Great  Armada. 
Topics. 

1.  Singeing  the  King  of  Spain's  beard, 

2.  The  Invincible  Armada  and  the  rise  of  the  English  people. 

3.  Appearance  of  the  Armada  and  the  fight  to  Calais  roads. 

4.  English  fireships  and  the  destruction  of  the  Armada. 

5.  Continuation  of  the  vv^ar. 

References.  —  Beesly,  ch.  x. ;  Gardiner,  ii.  458-464 ;  Creighton, 
181-186;  Traill,  iii.  416-418,  459-462:  Guest,  435  ;  Green,  418. 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  What  other  reason  than  a  religious 
one  did  Philip  have  for  his  attack  on  England.?  (Gibbins,  120.) 
(2.)  How  was  the  fear  of  the  English  that  Philip  would  introduce 
the  Inquisition  borne  out  by  his  preparations.'*  (Creighton,  181, 
182.  (3.)  What  was  the  attitude  toward  Elizabeth  of  the  Catho- 
lic leader  of  the  English  fleet?  (Gardiner,  ii.  460;  Bright,  ii. 
557.)  (4.)  What  does  this  show  as  to  Catholic  feeling  in  England 
toward  Philip  ?  (5.)  Compare  the  Armada  and  the  English  fleet. 
(Bright,  ii.  560 ;  Gardiner,  ii.  459,  460.) 

177.  Exploration,  and  the  Beginnings  of  Colonization. 

Topics. 

1.  Opening  of  Russian  trade  in  previous  reign. 

2.  Frobisher's  and  Drake's  voyages. 

3.  Gilbert's  and  Raleigh's  attempts  to  colonize. 

4.  The  Levant  and  the  East  India  companies. 
References.  —  Traill,  iii.  477-508.     Commerce  :  Green,  394,  395  ; 

Gibbins,  94,  95  ;  Cunningham  and  Mc Arthur,  109-120;  Creigh- 
ton, 135-137;  Traill,  iii.  539-542. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  relation  is  there  between  the 
crusading  spirit  and  the  colonizing  spirit?  (Creighton,  i.)  (2.) 
What  connection  can  you  trace  between  the  Reformation  in 
England  and  the  rise  of  her  commercial  greatness  and  coloniza- 
tion? (3.)  Where  did  Spain  and  Portugal  get  their  claims  to 
America?     (Czardiner,  ii.  447.)    (4.)  Why  did  the  Spanish  object 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    (2UESTI0NS.      339 

to  the  English  trading  with  their  colonies?     (5.)  Who  began  the 
slave  trade?     (Traill,  iii.  541.) 

178.  Prosperity  and  Distress. 
Topics. 

1.  Sources  of  prosperity  :  a^  honest  coinage;  b^  Flemish  artisans. 

2.  Distress  of  the  lower  classes  and  the  poor  laws. 
References.  —  Green,  392-398  ;   Bright,  ii.  573  ;  Cunningham  and 

McArthur,  91,  92;  Traill,  iii.  246-256,  548-558;  Taswell-Lang- 
mead,  477-480.  Social  life  :  Gardiner,  ii.  465-468;  Green,  396- 
398 ;  Creighton,  200-206 ;  Traill,  iii.  377-398,  564-578.  Agri- 
culture:  Gardiner,  ii.  464;  Bright,  ii.  572,  573;  Green,  393,  394; 
Gibbins,  108,  109;  Rogers,  ch.  xvi.  ;  Traill,  iii.  351-359,  533-538. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  should  Flemish  refugees  come 
to  England?  (2.)  What  arts  would  the  Huguenots  bring  in?  (3.) 
If  wars  in  the  low  countries  depressed  manufactures  there,  what 
effect  would  that  have  on  the  English  wool  trade  and  woolen 
manufacture?  (4.)  What  connection  between  inclosures  and 
poor  laws?  (5.)  What  effect  upon  the  price  of  food  products 
would  result  from  the  flocking  into  the  country  of  refugees  ?  (6.) 
This  would  encourage  what  sort  of  industry?  (7.)  What  does 
the  trade  between  England  and  Antwerp  largely  consist  of 
to-day  ? 

179.  The  Great  Age  of  English  Literature. 
Topics. 

1.  Immediate  springs  of  the  intellectual  awakening. 

2.  Great  writers  of  the  period. 

References.  —  Creighton,    208-226.     The   drama  :    Green,   426- 
438;  Creighton,  218-226:   Guest,  439,  440;  Traill,  iii.  338-341. 

180.    The   Rise  of   the   Puritans,    Presbyterians,   and 

Independents. 
Topics. 

1.  Dissenters   from    the   church    of   England:    «,   Puritans;  b^ 

Calvinists;  <r,  Independents. 

2.  Court  of  High  Commission  and  the  effect  of  its  action. 

3.  Opposition  to  monopolies.  t 
References.  —  Traill,  iii.  424-431;  Gardiner,  ii.  478;  Bright,  ii. 

579,580;    Green,    405;    Creighton,  235;  Colby,   159-162;  Gib- 
bins,  100-102;  Beesly,  223,  224.     The  Court  of  High  Commis- 


340  THE   ELIZABETHAN    AGE. 

sion :  Taswell-Langmead,  459 ;  Gardiner,  ii.  470 ;  Bright,  ii. 
569;  Green,  470,  471;  Creighton,  50,  no.  Elizabeth  and  the 
Commons  :  Gardiner,  ii.  444,  445,  468  ;  Green,  401-405 ;  Mon- 
tague, 109-112;  Ransome,  1 12-122;  Taswell-Langmead,  469- 
486.  Church  government  of  the  Calvinists  :  Gardiner,  ii.  430, 
431  ;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  168-170. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Puritanism  tended  to  develop  what 
traits  of  character,  as  shown  by  the  migration  to  America  ?  (2.) 
How  would  this  make  Puritans  valuable  in  a  Parliament.'*  (3.) 
What  made  the  queen  incline  to  favor  them  in  the  early  part  of 
her  reign  ?  (4.)  Describe  the  rise  of  the  High  Church  party, 
(Bright,  ii.  569.)  (5.)  Where  was  the  Separatist  colony  in  Amer- 
ica planted?  (6.)  Show  from  American  colonies  the  absence  of 
the  idea  of  "  toleration  "  from  the  rehgious  disputes.  (7.)  Who 
appointed  the  officials  of  the  Court  of  High  Commission.?  (8.) 
Against  whom  did  it  naturally  direct  its  action,  and  how  did  this 
affect  pubHc  opinion  ?  (Gardiner,  ii.  470.)  (9.)  What  invention 
made  the  suppression  of  free  speech  very  difficult.?  (10.)  How 
did  Ehzabeth  evade  the  power  of  Parliament  ?  (11.)  What  events 
of  her  reign  forced  her  to  call  a  Parliament?  (12.)  Where  did 
Elizabeth  get  the  power  to  pack  a  Parliament?     (Montague,  95.) 

181.  Ireland- 
Topics. 

1.  Result  of  forcing  the  Enghsh  church  upon  Ireland. 

2.  Successive  rebellions. 

3.  Essex  in  Ireland  and  his  death. 
Reference.  —  Green,  442-458. 

182.  Death  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 

Topic. 

I.  Circumstances  of  her  death  and  her  successor. 
Reference.  —  Beesly,  ch.  xii. 
Research    Questions.  —  (i.)  Compare   England's   advance  in 

wealth    and    civilization  under   the  Tudors    with   any  previous 

period  of  its  history.     (2.)  How  largely  is  this  advance  due  to 

the  Tudor  rulers  ? 


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SURVEY  OF  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY. 

The  Foimdi7ig  of  Moderfi  Scie7ice.  If  the  period  that  covers 
about  half  of  the  fifteenth  century  and  half  of  the  sixteenth 
is  properly  described  as  being  that  of  a  Renaissance  or  new 
birth  of  mind  in  western  Europe,  then  the  last  years  of  the 
sixteenth  century  and  the  whole  span  of  the  seventeenth 
may  be  called  the  school-time  of  its  youth.  Its  powers  were 
then  matured,  and  its  especially  modern  work,  in  what  we 
call  modern  Science  and  modern  Philosophy,  was  fairly  be- 
gun. It  accepted  the  new  view  of  God's  universe  which 
Copernicus  had  opened  up  when  he  showed  that  man's  little 
habitation,  the  earth,  is  not  the  centre  of  celestial  motions, 
but  only  a  satellite  of  the  sun.  Then  Kepler  found  the  laws 
of  the  revolutions  of  the  planets  ;  Galileo  brought  the  tele- 
scope to  the  help  of  the  astronomer's  eye ;  and  Newton  dis- 
covered the  one  force  and  the  one  law  that  act  alike  in  wheel- 
ing planets  and  falling  stones.  Ideas  of  law  and  unity  in 
nature  were  substantially  formed,  and  all  our  present  science 
is  but  a  larger  building  on  that  foundation  of  scientific  think- 
ing which  the  seventeenth  century  laid  down. 

The  Beginnings  of  Modern  Philosophy.  At  the  same  time, 
with  the  rise  of  scientific  knowledge,  there  came  new  ques- 
tionings as  to  what  knowledge  is,  what  certainties  it  has,  by 
what  methods  it  can  be  best  pursued,  and  how,  with  what 
faculties,  on  what  materials,  the  mind  is  working  when  it 
thinks  and  questions,  and  forms  the  beliefs  which  it  accepts 
as  a  knowledge  of  things.  From  these  philosophical  in- 
quiries by  Bacon,  Hobbes,  and  Locke  in  England,  by  Des- 
cartes   and    Malebranche    in    France,    and   by    Leibnitz    in 


THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY.  343 

Germany,  modern  thought  took  its  spirit  and  its  guidance 
scarcely  less  than  from  the  searchings  of  science  in  the  phy- 
sical world. 

The  Golden  Age  of  Literature.  The  ripened  powers  of 
mind  in  this  remarkable  age  produced  a  literature,  in  the 
three  leading  nations  of  the  time,  that  has  never,  as  a  whole, 
been  equalled  since.  Taken  together,  England,  France,  and 
Spain  show  nothing  in  any  other  age  that  compares  with  the 
Poetry,  the  Drama,  the  Romance  of  the  century,  or  little 
more  than  a  century,  which  takes  in  Shakespeare,  Ben  Jon- 
son,  Milton,  Bunyan,  Dryden,  Corneille,  Racine,  Moliere, 
Cervantes,  Lope  de  Vega,  and  Calderon.  It  is  the  century 
in  which  the  English  and  French  languages  received  their 
literary  form,  stamped  on  one  by  a  noble  version  of  the  Bible 
(the  "  authorized  version  "  of  King  James),  and  on  the  other 
by  the  classic  prose  writings  of  Pascal  and  his  contempora- 
ries, and  by  the  dictates  of  "The  Academy,"  which  Richelieu 
founded  in  1635.  It  was  the  "golden  age  "  of  letters  in  the 
greater  part  of  western  Europe,  though  the  golden  days  of 
Italy  were  far  in  the  past,  and  those  of  Germany  were  still 
to  come. 

The  Tliirty  Years'*  War.  We  suffer  a  shock  when  we  turn 
from  these  intellectual  splendors  of  the  seventeenth  century 
to  look  at  the  social  circumstances  of  the  age  ;  for  the  scenes 
of  war,  oppression,  and  common  misery  that  filled  it  are 
among  the  worst  that  history  can  show.  The  conflict  of  reli- 
gions in  Germany  gave  rise  to  the  most  dreadful  of  the  wars. 
Its  outbreak  was  in  Bohemia  (16 18),  where  the  Protestants  at- 
tempted to  take  the  crown  of  their  kingdom  from  the  House 
of  Austria,  and  to  place  it  on  the  head  of  the  Elector  Pala- 
tine, a  Protestant  prince.  From  that  beginning  it  spread, 
until  not  only  all  Germany  was  at  strife,  —  Protestant  princes 
against  Catholic  princes,  —  but  the  whole  of  western  Europe 
was  more  or  less  drawn  into  this  barbarous  "  Thirtv  Years' 
War."  The  people  at  large  had  little  to  do  with  the  begin- 
ning or  prolongation  of  the  war,  and  bore  little  part  in  it, 


344  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

except  as  victims  of  the  death  and  misery  it  caused.  For  the 
most  part,  it  was  carried  on  by  hired  armies  of  ruffians,  who 
fed,  clothed,  and  paid  themselves  by  the  plunder  they  gathered 
as  they  marched. 

The  Elector  Palatine  was  driven  from  his  principality,  be- 
sides losing  the  Bohemian  crown.  He  had  married  the 
daughter  of  James  I.  of  England,  and  that  foolish  king  med- 
dled in  the  quarrel  with  nothing  but  mischievous  effects. 
Denmark  and  Holland  interfered  weakly,  with  no  results. 
But,  in  1630,  a  famous  king  of  Sweden,  Gustavus  Adolphus, 
came  to  the  rescue  of  the  broken  Protestant  cause.  For  two 
years  he  was  victorious,  and  then  he  fell,  at  Lutzen  (1632). 
The  war  raged  on,  through  sixteen  more  years,  prolonged 
mainly  by  the  instigations  and  the  help  of  Cardinal  Richelieu, 
who  then  ruled  France,  and  who  aimed  at  future  conquests  on 
the  Rhine. 

When  peace  was  made  at  last  (the  Peace  of  Westphalia, 
1648),  Germany  was  half  a  desert,  more  broken  and  divided 
than  ever,  and,  more  than  ever,  the  House  of  Austria,  nomi- 
nally the  imperial  head  of  the  Germanic  states,  had  become 
an  alien  power. 

The  Rise  of  Prussia.  But  another  House,  destined  to  push 
the  Austrian  aside,  was  just  coming  to  the  front.  At  the 
outbreak  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  two  branches  of  the 
Hohenzollern  family  had  been  in  possession  of  two  princi- 
palities in  the  north,  the  electorate  of  Brandenburg  and  the 
duchv  of  Prussia,  both  of  which  were  Wendish  or  Slavonic 
lands.  In  1618  the  younger  line  died  out,  and  Brandenburg 
and  Prussia  were  then  united  under  the  head  of  the  Branden- 
burg branch,  whose  son  and  successor  appears  in  German 
history  as  "The  Great  Elector,"  because  of  the  skill  with 
which  he  raised  himself  and  his  House  in  importance  during 
and  after  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 

France  tinder  Richelieu.  While  Germany  in  this  period 
went  to  wreck,  France  was  being  nationally  moulded  by 
a  powerful  hand.     Its    Huguenot  king,   Henry  of  Navarre, 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY.  345 

killed  by  an  assassin  in  16 10,  had  left  it  in  a  promising  state. 
But  the  son,  Louis  XIll.,  who  succeeded  him,  was  a  child  ; 
and  the  government,  for  a  dozen  years,  controlled  by  Italian 
favorites  of  the  queen-mother,  Marie  de  Medici,  could  hardly 
have  been  worse.  Then  the  young  king,  who  had  no  ability 
in  himself,  came  under  the  influence  of  an  extraordinary 
man,  Cardinal  Richelieu,  who  ruled  France  for  eighteen  years 
as  though  the  sceptre  was  his  own.  He  crushed  the  Hugue- 
nots as  a  disturbing  political  party,  while  he  let  their  religion 
alone  ;  he  bent  the  necks  of  the  powerful  nobles  ;  he  prepared 
the  monarchy  to  become  a  brilliant  and  deadly  despotism  ; 
and  so  he  started  France  upon  a  career  as  pitiful  in  reality  as 
it  was  splendid  in  the  outward  show.  He  did  Europe  a  great 
service  by  checking  the  dangerous  growth  of  power  in  that 
Austrian  and  Spanish  family-circle  of  clannish  potentates 
which  took  form  in  the  preceding  century  ;  but  he  cleared 
the  way,  in  doing  so,  for  a  still  more  threatening  power  to 
arise. 

France  wider  MazaiHn.  Richelieu  died  in  1642,  and  Louis 
XIII.  in  1643.  Once  more  a  child,  Louis  XIV.,  became  king, 
under  the  regency  of  a  queen-mother,  Anne  of  Austria,  and 
again  a  struggle  of  factions  occurred.  Cardinal  Mazarin,  who 
took  Richelieu's  place,  was  adroit  rather  than  strong,  and  it 
was  only  after  a  series  of  shameful  civil  wars,  known  as  the 
wars  of  the  Fronde,  that  the  control  of  the  government  came 
into  his  hands.  The  frivolous  and  contemptible  spirit  of 
these  wars,  in  which  no  pretence,  even,  of  a  public  aim  or  a 
patriotic  motive  appeared,  puts  them  strikingly  in  contrast 
with  the  serious  civil  conflict  in  England  that  had  just  reached 
its  crisis  when  they  began  (see  chapter  XVII). 

Mazarin  carried  Richelieu's  war  with  Spain  to  what  seemed 
to  be  a  successful  close.  The  Treaty  of  the  Pyrenees  (1659) 
which  ended  it  gave  France  important  gains ;  but  it  prepared 
a  long  train  of  future  wars,  by  arranging  for  the  marriage  of 
the  young  king,  Louis  XIV.,  to  a  daughter  of  the  Spanish 
royal   house.     Both   parties  to   the  marriage  renounced,  for 


346  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

themselves  and  their  descendants,  all  possible  claims  to  the 
Spanish  crown  ;  but  the  renunciation  meant  nothing  to  Louis 
XIV.,  as  events  were  to  prove. 

Frafice  under  Louis  XIV.  This  despotic  master  of  France 
was  one  of  those  hateful  products  of  royalty  who  grow  mon- 
strous in  self-conceit,  and  scornful  of  the  moral  laws  and  de- 
cent constraints  that  bear  on  common  men.  He  had  the  talent 
of  an  actor  for  playing  a  pompous  kingly  part  exceedingly 
well ;  but  he  played  it  at  the  cost  of  ruin  to  France.  His 
peculiar  piety  cost  the  country  almost  as  much.  It  resented 
the  toleration  that  his  grandfather  had  guaranteed  to  Hugue- 
not worship,  and  he  revoked  (1685)  the  wise  Edict  of  Nantes 
(see  page  253),  thereby  driving  out  of  his  kingdom  not  far 
from  half  a  million  of  the  most  skilful  workers  in  all  its  cher- 
ished arts,  and  breaking  down  the  industries  of  France. 

Of  course  such  a  reign  had  to  be  lighted  up  with  the  blaz- 
ing glories  of  war,  and  Louis  XIV.  had  no  scruple  as  to  the 
pretexts  on  which  he  attacked  his  neighbors,  when  it  pleased 
him  to  set  his  armies  at  work.  For  half  a  century  western 
Europe  was  torn  and  tortured  by  the  succession  of  cruel 
wars  which  he  forced  reluctant  nations  to  fight  in  self-de- 
fence. Thanks  to  the  despotic  power  he  had  received  from 
Richelieu  and  Mazarin,  he  could  drain  the  resources  of 
France  without  any  check ;  and,  for  servants,  he  had  the  pick 
of  an  age  that  was  rich  in  gifted  men.  There  was  no  single 
power  that  could  resist  him  in  war.  One  by  one  they  would 
have  gone  down  before  him  —  the  Dutch  Republic  most  cer- 
ainly  of  all  —  if  William  of  Orange,  Stadtholder  of  Holland 
and  afterwards  King  of  England,  had  not  organized  leagues 
against  him,  with  a  patient  courage  that  yielded  to  no  defeat. 
Before  William  died,  the  "  grand  monarch,"  as  he  was  styled 
in  France,  had  been  compelled  by  the  Treaty  of  Ryswick 
(1697)  to  surrender  very  nearly  every  conquest  he  had  made. 

The  Dutch  Netherlands.  This  Prince  of  Orange  was  a  great- 
grandson  of  that  heroic  William  the  Silent  who  led,  in  its 
beginning,  the  Dutch  revolt  against  Spain.    The  United  Pro- 


THE   SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY.  347 

vinces  of  the  northern  or  Dutch  Netherlands  had  fought  the 
Spaniards  until  1607,  when  a  truce  for  twelve  years  was 
arranged.  Meantime  the  southern  provinces,  known  there- 
after as  the  Spanish  Netherlands,  had  given  up  the  attempt 
to  break  their  yoke.  At  the  end  of  the  truce,  the  Spaniards 
renewed  their  struggle  with  the  Dutch,  and  it  was  not  until 
1648  that  they  acknowledged  the  independence  which  the 
latter  had  won  practically  long  before.  Shortly  afterwards,  a 
grandson  of  William  the  Silent,  who  was  stadtholder  or  chief 
magistrate  of  the  United  Provinces,  attempted  to  make  himself 
king,  but  died  in  the  midst  of  his  schemes.  The  office  of 
stadtholder  was  then  abolished,  and  remained  so  for  more 
than  twenty  years,  during  which  time  Holland,  the  chief  pro- 
vince in  the  Union,  controlled  the  federal  government  so 
entirely  that  the  federation  came  to  be  called  by  its  name. 
John  de  Witt,  Grand  Pensionary  of  Holland,  as  the  chief 
magistrate  of  that  province  was  entitled,  took  the  stadthold- 
er's  place.  But,  in  1672,  a  French  invasion  of  Holland 
brought  about  a  revolution,  in  which  De  Witt  was  murdered, 
and  William  of  Orange  was  raised  to  the  office  that  his  ances- 
tors had  filled. 

Throughout  this  period,  the  Dutch  were  outdoing  all  other 
peoples  in  industry  and  trade,  and  they  arrived  in  the  course 
of  it  at  more  enlightened  conditions  of  freedom  than  existed 
elsewhere  in  the  world. 

Other  Countries.  Spain,  meantime,  was  going  to  decay, 
under  the  double  despotism  of  its  monarchy  and  its  Inquisi- 
tion, while  Italy  was  suffering  the  blight  of  Spanish  rule  in 
the  south  and  Austrian  rule  in  the  north. 

The  Turks  made  their  last  fight  for  Hungary,  —  their  last 
advance  to  Vienna,  which  they  besieged  in  1683,  and  which 
owed  its  deliverance  to  John  Sobieski,  the  heroic  Pole.  Hun- 
gary was  wholly  and  finally  wrested  from  them  in  1699,  and 
its  crown,  elective  until  then,  became  hereditary  in  the  pos- 
session of  the  Austrian  House. 

Poland  was  fast  sinking  to  the  state  of  anarchy  in  which 


343  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

its  national  life,  briefly  revived  by  Sobieski,  was  doomed  to 
expire.  Russia,  growing  slowly  into  form  as  a  barbaric 
empire,  came  just  to  the  point,  when  the  century  closed,  of 
receiving  from  Peter  the  Great  the  mechanic  arts  of  civili- 
zation which  he  travelled  abroad,  as  a  common  workman,  to 
learn. 

In  America,  the  seventeenth  century  was  the  period  of 
colonial  settlement,  by  English,  Dutch,  Swedes,  and  French. 
In  the  far  eastern  world  many  changes  occurred  that  were  of 
lasting  effect :  China  came  under  the  rule  of  the  Manchu 
dynasty  of  emperors,  which  reigns  at  the  present  day ;  the 
great  Mongol  or  Mogul  empire  in  Hindostan  attained  its 
greatest  power  and  extent ;  at  the  same  time  the  famous 
East  India  Company  of  English  merchants,  which  was  des- 
tined to  take  the  sovereignty  of  India  from  the  Moguls, 
acquired  its  footing,  and  the  Portuguese  were  supplanted  in 
the  Malay  Archipelago  by  the  Dutch. 


THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION. 

1603-1688. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

WANING  REVERENCE  FOR  ROYALTY. 

The  First  Stuart  King  :  James  I.  of  England  and  VI. 

OF  Scotland.     1603-1625. 

183.  James   I.    of    England   and   VI.    of    Scotland. 

Among  the  possible  successors  to  Elizabeth,  James  Stu- 
art could  be  accepted  with  the  least  dispute.  He  was 
the  nearest  heir  to  the  throne,  and  the  probable  advan- 
tage to  both  countries  of  a  union  of  the  Eriglish  and 
Scottish  crowns  could  hardly  be  denied.  But,  while 
willingly  received,  he  was  not  a  welcome  king.  Scotch- 
men were  foreigners  to  Englishmen  in  that  day,  and 
were  much  disliked.  Towards  a  king  from  Scotland  the 
English  could  not  possibly  have  the  deferential  feeling 
which  sovereigns  of  their  own  stock  had  commanded  for 
some  generations  past.  No  tact  nor  wisdom  could  have 
won  it  for  him  ;  and  James  had  neither  wisdom  nor  tact. 
He  was  a  foolishly  conceited  man,  shrewd  in  some 
ways,  and  quite  learned  for  a  prince,  but  confidently  per- 
suaded that  no  others  in  the  world  were  so  knowing  as 
himself.  He  had  preposterous  notions  of  ''the  divinity 
that  doth  hedge  a  king,"  though  afflicted  with  character 
infirmities  and  oddities  of  person  and  manner  of  James, 
that  made  them  seem  doubly  absurd.     He  was  coarse  in 


350 


THE    CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.     [1603-1604 


speech,  uncleanly  in  his  habits,  intemperate  in  drinking, 
and  without  dignity  of  any  sort.  Such  a  king  could  not 
fail  to  finish  practically  the  breaking  of  that  strange  spell 
which  the  autocratic  royalty  of  the  Tudors  had  cast  on  the 

English  mind,  but 
which  religious  op- 
position had  begun 
to  weaken  before  he 
came. 

James  came  to 
his  new  kingdom 
full  of  self-sufficient 
feeling,  but  with 
no  understanding  of 
the  English  people 
or  their  political 
constitution.  In 

Scotland,  the  Pres- 
byterian clergy, 
with  their  great 
popular  influence, 
had  interfered  with 
his  arbitrary  exercise  of  power.  In  England,  as  head  of 
the  church,  he  expected  to  be  free  from  such 
ofEng-  interference,  as  he  saw  that  Elizabeth  had  been. 
He  probably  went  to  his  southern  kingdom  with 
nothing  more  fixed  in  his  mind  than  the  purpose  to  keep 
Presbyterianism  down,  and,  if  that  were  done,  saw  no- 
thing to  obstruct  the  prospect  of  an  absolute  reign. 

184.  The  King's  Dealing  with  Puritans  and  Catho- 
lics. The  first  question  with  which  King  James  had  to 
deal  concerned  the  treatment  that  the  English  Puritans 
were  to  receive.  The  question  stood  open  until  January, 
1604,   when   James   summoned   four    Puritans    to  meet 


JAMES    I.    OF    ENGLAND,    VI.    OF    SCOTLAND. 


1604] 


WANING    REVERENCE   FOR  ROYALTY. 


351 


bishops  and  others  of  the  opposite  party,  for  a  discus- 
sion of  the  differences  between  them  in  his  presence, 
at  Hampton  Court.  He  seems  to  have  Ustened  with 
fairness  to  the  debate,  until  one  of  the  Puritan  speakers 
unkickily  let  slip  the  word  "  presbyters,"  whereat  the 
king  flamed  out  in  abusive  wrath.  That  had  settled 
the  matter  ;  the  case  was  closed.  "  If  this  be  all  they 
have  to  say,"  cried  the  angry  "head  of  the  church,"  as 
he  left  the  room,  "I  shall  make  them  conform  them- 
selves, or  I  will  harry  them  out  of  the  land."  "  In  two 
minutes,"  remarks  the  historian  of  his  reign,  Professor 
Gardiner,  "  he  had  sealed  his  own  fate  and  the  fate  of 
England."  ^  For  when  he  resolved  to  harry  the  Puritans 
out  of  England,  with  the  help  of  applauding  bishops,  who 
declared  that  "  His  Majesty  spoke  by  inspiration  of  the 

Spirit  of  God,"  he  opened  a  conflict 
which  brought  his  son  to  the  block, 
which  drove  his  grandson  from  the 
throne,  and  which  forever  ended  the 
power  of  kings  in  England  to  "harry  " 
anybody  out  of  the  land. 

The  wishes  of  the  king  were  car- 
ried out  as  promptly  as  possible  by 
the  bishops,  who  framed  a  new  and 
stricter  code  of  ecclesiasti- 

Action 

cal  law,  applymg  penalties  of  the 

,       ,  ,  -  bishops. 

to  everybody  who   reiused 
to   declare   that   neither  the   Prayer 
Showing  the  "  wheel  far-    j^Qok  nor  thc  Thirty-uinc  Articles  of 

thingale  "  then  worn . 

the  church  contained  anything  con- 
trary to  the  Word  of  God.  By  the  enforcement  of  the 
new  code,  some  300  clergymen  were  driven  from  the 
church. 

1  Gardiner,  Hist,  of  Eng.^  1 603-1 642,  vol.  i.  ch.  iv. 


^:^mm  ^^^■•;.';j\^^^^)f  ;j'/«p-p» 


ANNE    OF    DENM.'VRK, 
WIFE    OF   JAMES    1. 


352  THE    CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.  [1604 

The  Catholics  fared  no  better  than  the  Puritans  at  the 
hands  of  the  king.  Before  the  death  of  EHzabeth,  when 
he  was  seeking  the  good-will  of  his  mother's 
toward  the  English  friends,  he  had  given  them  reason  to 
expect  from  him  a  tolerant  rule.  For  a  time, 
in  fact,  he  did  stop  the  enforcement  of  penalties  against 
the  Catholics  ;  but  he  soon  yielded  to  the  clamor  which 
this  produced,  and  consented  to  new  laws  more  severe 
than  the  old. 

185.  The  First  Encounter  of  a  Stuart  King  with 
an  English  Parliament.  Before  the  first  Parliament 
that  he  summoned  (March,  1604)  came  together,  James 
had  opened  a  quarrel  with  the  Commons,  by  attempting 
to  empower  the  Court  of  Chancery  to  judge  the  qualifi- 
cations of  its  members.  The  dispute  ended  in  a  com- 
promise, as  concerned  the  elections  then  in  question, 
but  the  substantial  victory  was  on  the  parliamentary 
side.  The  jurisdiction  of  the  House  of  Commons  over 
its  own  elections  was  never  called  in  question  again. 

The  upper  House  was  more  in  agreement  with  the 
crown  than  the  lower,  and  Lords  and  Commons  worked 
at  cross  purposes  so  persistently  that  nothing  was  done. 
James  had  his  heart  set  on  a  complete  union  of  his  two 
kingdoms  in  one;  but  his  Enghsh  subjects  were  in  no 
mood  to  consider  the  scheme.     The  usual  and 

The  Lords  i     •  i-        >i   r  ^ 

and  Com-  needed  ''subsidies  from  the  Commons,  which 
were  grants  of  a  fixed  tax  on  incomes  from 
land,  were  obstinately  withheld ;  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  important  measures  that  the  Commons  wished  to 
pass,  including  measures  to  check  the  proceedings  of 
the  king  and  the  bishops  against  the  Puritan  clergy, 
were  smothered  in  the  House  of  Lords.  In  July,  the 
abortive  session  was  ended  by  a  scolding  harangue  from 
James,  in  which  he  lectured  the  Commons  like  an  angry 


i6o4]       WANING    REVERENCE    FOR   ROYALTY.         353 

schoolmaster  talking  to  unruly  boys.  On  its  own  side, 
the  House  of  Commons  had  already  prepared  a  digni- 
fied address  to  the  undignified  sovereign,  calmly  making 
known  to  him  that  he  had  been  misinformed  as  to  the 
English  constitution  and  the  prerogatives  of  the  English 
crown. 

Conspicuous  among  the  commoners  in  this  Parliament 
was  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  who  bore  an  honorable  and  in- 
fluential part  in  what  was  done.  If  the  moral  Lord 
energy  of  that  remarkable  man  had  been  equal  ^^'^o^- 
to  his  surpassing  intellect,  he  might  have  become  the 
great  leader  of  the  people  towards  a  peaceful  recovery 
of  constitutional  rights.  He  could  give,  and  he  did  give, 
wise  counsel,  to  both  Elizabeth  and  James,  tending  to 
tolerance  in  the  church  and  good  government  in  the 
state  ;  but,  also,  he  could  pliantly  lend  himself  to  the 
carrvins:  out  of  meaner  counsels  than  his  own. 

186.  Plot  against  the  Government.  For  the  discon- 
tent of  the  Catholics  there  was  no  voice  in  Parliament ; 
they  were  excluded  from  it  by  the  oaths  required.  Con- 
spiracy under  such  circumstances  was  inevitable  ;  yet 
very  few  persons  appear  to  have  been  engaged  in  the 
plots  that  occurred.  In  the  first  year  of  the  new  reign 
there  were  discoveries  of  an  alleged  intrigue  with  Spain, 
in  which  Protestants  were  involved,  Sir  Walter  sir  waiter 
Raleigh  being  one  of  the  accused.  Raleigh,  ^^^^^sn- 
the  most  energetic  man  of  genius  in  his  time,  had  power- 
ful enemies  at  court,  especially  in  Robert  Cecil,  son  of 
the  late  Lord  Burleigh,  who  had  established  himself  in 
favor  with  King  James.  Of  all  men  in  England,  Raleigh 
seemed  the  least  likely  to  engage  in  plotting  with  Spain  ; 
but  his  enemies,  who  wished  to  remove  him  from  their 
path,  contrived  to  have  him  accused,  convicted,  and  sen- 
tenced to  death.     He  was  then  respited  by  royal  order. 


354 


THE   CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION. 


[1604 


but  kept  imprisoned  in  the  Tower  for  fifteen  years,  until 
the  long-suspended  sentence  of  death  might  be  executed 
more  infamously  at  last. 

A  more  real  and  darkly  conceived  plot  was  formed,  in 
1604,  when  half  a  dozen  desperate  men  among  the  Cath- 
olics, who  shared  their  secret  with  a  few  others,  laid  plans 
for  blowing  up  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament,  at  the  mo- 
ment of  the  opening  of  the  session,  when  the  king  and 


VAULT  BENEATH  THE  OLD  HOUSE  OF  LORDS. 


the  Prince  of  Wales  would  be  present  and  the  Lords  and 
Commons  assembled  in  the  same  hall.  They  first  hired 
a  house  adjoining  the  Parliament  building,  and  presently 
found  that  a  coal  cellar,  reaching  under  the  very  chamber 
of  the  House  of  Lords,  could  be  leased,  which  made  their 
task  easy.  They  stored  an  enormous  quantity  of  gun- 
powder in  the  cellar,  covered  it  with  coal  and  wood,  and 


i6o4-i6o6J  WANING    REVERENCE    FOR   ROYALTY.      355 

prej^ared  to  explode  it  at  the  proper  hour.     The  meeting 
of  Parhament  was  postponed  from  time  to  time, 

-,       r  1        r  TheGun- 

until  more  than  a  year  passed  after  the  lorma-  powder 
tion  of  the  plot.  Finally  the  ceremonies  of  the 
opening  were  appointed  for  the  5th  of  November,  1605, 
and  on  the  eve  of  that  day  the  conspirators  had  every- 
thing ready  for  their  terrible  deed.  But  one  of  their 
number,  seeking  at  the  last  moment  to  save  a  friend, 
sent  him  a  mysterious  message,  which  roused  suspicions, 
and  caused  the  vaults  of  the  Parliament  building  to  be 
searched.  The  powder  was  discovered,  and  a  single 
actor  in  the  plot,  Guy  Fawkes  by  name,  was  seized  on 
the  spot.  His  associates  were  all  taken  soon  afterwards 
and  suffered  death  with  him,  or  were  killed  in  resisting 
arrest.  The  anniversary  of  the  plot,  so  narrowly  escaped, 
is  still  remembered  in  England,  being  popularly  known 
as  "  Guy  Fawkes's  Day."  The  effect  of  the  great  ex- 
citement produced  was  to  expose  the  Catholics  in  Eng- 
land to  laws  much  more  severe  than  before. 

187.  King  James  and  the  English  Parliament  again. 
The  second  session  of  James's  first  Parliament  was  mainly 
taken  up  with  the  passing  of  new  laws  against  the  Catho- 
lics, concerning  which  king  and  Commons  were  agreed. 
With  the  beginning  of  the  third  session,  in  November, 
1606,  the  old  conflict  was  revived.  The  Commons  re- 
fused to  open  free  trade  with  Scotland,  and  disputed  an 
opinion  from  the  law  officers  of  the  crown,  that  Scotch- 
men born  after  the  accession  of  King  James  » The  post- 
to  the  English  throne  ("  post-nati,"  they  were  ^^^^•" 
called)  were  entitled  in  both  kingdoms  to  the  privileges 
of  the  native-born.  Their  feeling  on  this  latter  subject 
was  made  bitter  by  the  gifts,  pensions,  offices,  and  other 
favors  which  the  king  lavished  on  his  Scottish  friends. 

Another   cause   of   ill-feeling   arose   from   the  king's 


356  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1606-1607 

evident  desire  to  be  on  good  terms  with  Spain.  He 
never  comprehended  the  antagonism  of  pohtical,  reli- 
gious, and  commercial  feeling  with  which  the  English 
people  regarded  that  dangerous  power.  Apparently  he 
was  flattered  by  efforts  which  the  Spanish  court  made 
to  cultivate  his  good-will.  Being  naturally  inclined  to 
peace,  and  looking  as  coldly  as  Elizabeth  had  done  on 
the  heroic  struggle  of  the  Dutch,  he  was  easily  induced, 
soon  after  his  accession,  to  conclude  a  treaty 

The  kincf's  .  .  ,     . 

Spanish       with    Spain  which  was  much  disliked.     Fresh 

leanings.        ...  •  n  •  i      1 

irritations  were  continually  occurring,  and  the 
Commons  desired  a  renewal  of  war,  to  which  the  king 
would  not  consent.  The  suggestion  of  a  marriage  be- 
tween his  eldest  son  and  the  infanta  (royal  princess) 
of  Spain  was  being  dangled  before  his  eyes,  —  a  piece 
of  treacherous  flattery  that  lured  him  for  years.  In 
July,  1607,  the  Parliament  was  prorogued  (its  session 
suspended  indefinitely),  and  was  not  permitted  to  assem- 
ble again  for  two  years  and  a  half. 

188.  Multiplied  Offences  of  the  Government.  Be- 
fore Parliament  met  again,  many  things  had  been  done 
which  angered  the  public  mind.  The  so-called  "  post- 
nati  "  of  Scotland,  whom  Parliament  had  refused  to  nat- 
uralize in  England,  were  declared  to  be  natural  subjects 
of  the  king  in  both  kingdoms,  by  a  decision  obtained 
from  the  Court  of  Chancery.  By  another  judgment,  pro- 
cured from  the  Court  of  Exchequer,  a  doctrine  most 
threatening  to  the  constitution  was  affirmed  ;  for  it  con- 
Royai  "im-  ccdcd  authority  to  the  king  to  levy  "  imposi- 
positions."  tions  "  —  customs  duties  —  on  imports  and  ex- 
ports, at  will,  without  parliamentary  consent.  This  was 
a  deadly  blow  struck  at  the  most  precious  of  all  the  Eng- 
lish safeguards  of  political  freedom,  going  far  towards 
nullifying    that    chief   provision    of    the    Great    Charter 


i6o6  i6o7]  WANING    REVERENCE    FOR    ROYALTY.      357 

which  was  the  longest  fought  for,  and  the  hardest  to 
win  (see  section  69).  If  the  king  could  tax  the  com- 
merce of  the  country  at  will,  he  had  gained  an  independ- 
ence which  even  the  Tudors  had  claimed  but  once,  in 
Mary's  reign. 

A  different  spirit  prevailed  in  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench,  where  a  majority  of  the  judges,  under  the  lead 
of  a  great  lawyer.  Sir  Edward  Coke,  courage-  sir  Edward 
ously  upheld  the  English  common  law  against  ^°*^^- 
the  High  Commission  clerical  court.  King  James  gave 
an  angry  and  violent  support  to  the  latter,  and  Coke  and 
his  associates  were  baffled  for  the  time. 

Still  another,  perhaps  the  sharpest  among  all  the  pro- 
vocations to  ill-will  that  James  offered  his  subjects,  was 
that   which   came   from   his   silly  affection  for  The  king's 
worthless  favorites,  and  from  the  recklessness  ^Jb^err' 
with  which  he  enriched  them  at  public  expense.   ^^^^• 
One   such   parasite   of    royalty,  a    young    Scot,   named 
Robert  Carr,  afterwards  made  Viscount  Rochester  and 
Earl  of  Somerset,  was  rising  to  offensive  prominence  at 
this  time. 

189.  The  Virginia  Colony  in  America.  It  was  in  the 
midst  of  these  circumstances  at  home,  that  the  small 
beginnings  of  an  "  English  nation  planted  in  America  " 
were  successfully  made,  by  the  colony  which  landed  on 
James  River,  in  the  pleasant  month  of  May,  1607,  and 
which  was  saved  from  the  fate  of  Raleigh's  earlier  settle- 
ments by  the  resolute  energy  of  Captain  John  Smith. 
The  king,  in  1606,  had  chartered  a  great  colonizing 
corporation,  in  two  branches,  one  known  as  the  London 
Company,  receiving  rights  of  settlement  on  the  Atlantic 
coast  of  North  America  from  the  mouth  of  the  Potomac 
southward  to  the  region  of  Cape  Fear ;  the  other,  called 
the  Plymouth  Company,  having  similar  rights  from  about 


358  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.  [1607 

Long  Island  to  Nova  Scotia,  at  the  north.  The  whole 
section  of  America,  between  Spanish  settlement  in  Flor- 
ida and  French  exploration  in  the  St.  Lawrence  valley, 
was  claimed  to  be  the  property  of  the  English  crown, 
and  this  was  the  beginning  of  an  actual  occupation  of 
the  country,  to  make  the  claim  good.  Both  companies 
sent  out  colonies  in  1607,  but  that  of  the  Plymouth  Com- 
pany, landing  near  the  mouth  of  the  Kennebec  River, 
had  no  success.  New  England  was  to  be  planted  a  little 
later,  in  a  very  different  way. 

190.  The  Plantation  of  Ulster  in  Ireland.  At  the 
time  when  this  first  English  settlement  gained  its  foot- 
ing in  America,  a  notable  undertaking  of  Scotch  and 
English  colonization  in  Ireland  was  begun.  In  the  clos- 
ing years  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  reign,  the  subjugation 
of  Ireland,  so  long  labored  at  in  vain,  had  been  prac- 
tically completed  by  Lord  Mount] oy,  who  succeeded 
Essex  in  the  command,  and  who  made  a  desert  of  the 
regions  which  would  not  submit.  The  subjugation  was 
followed  by  measures  for  breaking  up  the  primitive 
organization  of  the  Irish  septs,  or  clans,  by  converting 
their  chiefs  into  landlords,  having  rights  of  property  and 
entitled  to  definite  rents,  but  deprived  of  the  arbitrary 
power  they  had  exercised  from  ancient  times.  It  was 
clearly  a  measure  in  the  interest  of  the  people  at  large  ; 
but,  like  everything  else  done  in  Ireland,  it  was  carried 
out  in  an  exasperating  way.  Then  the  new  zeal  of  King 
James  for  the  English  church  was  aroused  to  "  harry  " 
the  Catholics  and  make  matters  worse.  It  would  be 
strange  if  no  plot  of  rebellion  had  been  provoked.  Eng- 
lish officials  in  Ireland  claimed  to  have  discovered  such 
a  plot  ;  but  Irish  historians  contend  that  it  was  invented 
for  the  ruin  of  the  greater  chiefs.  At  all  events,  the  two 
most  dangerous  Irish  lords,  O'Neill,  Earl  of  Tyrone,  and 


IRELAND 

1600-1900 


English  Miles 

1 I 1 I 1 

0        10       20       30       40 


r 


L      A      N      T       i 


A    lu 


B      Longitude  \\  eat  8        of  Greenwich        C 


i6o7-i6ii]  WANING    REVERENCE    FOR    ROYALTY.      359 

O'Donnell,  Earl  of  Tyrconnell,  were  accused  of  rebel- 
lious schemes  and  fled  to  Spain  (1607).  Six  counties  in 
Ulster  were  then  declared  to  be  confiscated,  the  greater 
part  of  the  native  population  was  removed,  and  large 
numbers  of  Scottish  and  English  settlers  were  brought 
in  to  take  their  place. 

191.  Dissolution  of  the  First  Parliament  of  King 
James.  The  extravagance  of  the  king  compelled  him 
to  call  Parliament  together,  in  1609,  and  ask  for  the  fill- 
ing of  his  purse  ;  but  he  asked  in  vain.  The  Commons 
would  give  no  attention  to  his  wants  until  their  com- 
plaints against  his  government  had  been  plainly  set  forth 
and  a  satisfying  answer  to  them  made.  Fruitless  wran- 
gles were  prolonged  until  February,  161 1,  when  James, 
especially  angered  by  some  flings  at  his  obnoxious  Scotch 
favorites,  dissolved  the  refractory  Parliament  and  so 
ended  its  term  of  life. 

For  the  arrogance  of  the  attempts  which  this  absurd 
monarch  was  making  to  acquire  more  absolute  power 
than  even  the  Tudors  had  claimed,  he  must  not  be  held 
responsible  alone.  He  was  scarcely  more  than  the  tool 
of  a  new  conspiracy  against  English  liberty  and  law, 
the  responsible  authors  of  which  were  found  among  the 
clergy  of  the  ruling  party  in  the  church.  An  absolute 
monarchy  to  uphold  a  despotic  priesthood,  in  a  state- 
controlled  church,  was  the  object  of  their  desire.  They 
flattered  the  conceit  of  the  foolish  king,  and  filled  him 
with  such  notions  of  a  "  divine  right  "  in  his  kingship 
as  went  beyond  all  former  bounds.     They  were 

,   ,  .  ■'  The  real 

assisted  by  a  certain  class  of  lawyers,  who  prac-  conspira- 
tised  in  the  church  courts,  where  the  canon  or 
civil  law,  derived  from  the  Roman,  prevailed,  and  where 
the  English  common  law  was  rather  despised.     Another 
class,  too,  the  chancery  lawyers,  who  looked  slightingly 


36o  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1611-1613 

at  the  common  law,  in  which  EngUsh  rights  and  hberties 
had  their  root,  gave  a  shameful  encouragement  to  the 
pretensions  of  King  James  ;  and  Bacon  was  among 
these.  On  the  other  hand,  the  lawyers  of  the  common 
law  courts,  venerating  the  precedents  of  English  history, 
both  legal  and  political,  and  inspired  by  Chief  Justice 
Coke,  became  stubborn  leaders  of  resistance  to  royal  and 
ecclesiastical  usurpation,  throughout  the  long  conflict 
that  was  now  begun. 

192.  The  Reign  of  Favorites.  After  the  dissolution 
of  161 1,  James  avoided  the  election  of  a  new  Parliament 
for  three  years.  All  imaginable  devices  for  raising  money 
were  employed,  and  the  making  of  public  debt  went  on. 
But  there  was  no  economy  at  court,  and  no  learning  of 
Death  of  wiscr  ways.  The  better  influences  there,  on 
Prince^^^  the  Contrary,  disappeared  in  the  course  of  the 
Henry.  y^^y  i6i2,  whcu  Cccil,  Earl  of  Salisbury,  and 
Prince  Henry,  the  eldest  son  of  the  king,  were  laid  in  the 
grave.  Salisbury  had  few  sterling  principles,  but  much 
excellent  sense ;  and  Prince  Henry  had  seemed  to  be  far 
superior  to  the  stock  from  which  he  sprang. 

After  their  death,  there  were  none  to  resist  the  in- 
fluence of  Carr,  the  worthless  favorite,  who  ruled  and 
befooled  the  silly,  tippling  king.  In  161 3,  Carr  became 
Earl  of  Somerset,  and  was  omnipotent  at  court  for  three 
Fall  of  years.  All  bowed  before  him,  and  he  levied 
Somerset,  tribute  from  all  who  sought  office  or  favors 
from  the  head  of  the  state.  Then  came  an  overwhelm- 
ing accusation  and  conviction  of  crime  which  ended  his 
career. 

A  new  favorite,  of  like  worthlessness,  had  already  won 
the  affections  of  King  James,  and  was  ready  to  take 
Somerset's  place.  This  was  a  young  Englishman,  plain 
George  Villiers  at  first,  Duke   of   Buckingham   at   last. 


i6i4]  WANING    REVERENCE    FOR   ROYALTY       361 


whose  handsome  person,  agreeable  manners,  easy  con- 
science, and    small    self-respect    fully  qualified 

1    •  1  1  1    •     r  •  r  Ml         ^ise  of 

hmi  to  be  the  chiei  parasite  of  a  contemptible  Bucking- 
court.     After  Buckingham's  rise,  no  measure 
could  be  adopted,  no  man  could  enter  or  be  advanced  in 
public  office,  except   in   return  for  favors,  flatteries,  or 
payments  to  him, 

193.  The  Addled  Parliament.  In  16 14,  James  was 
l^ersuaded  to  let  certain  officious  politicians  of  the  day 
manage   elections    for    a 

new  Parliament,  which 
should  be,  they  assured 
him,  so  made  up  as  to  do 
exactly  what  he  wished, 
without  question  or  com- 
plaint. But  the  scheme 
of  the  "undertakers,"  as 
they  were  called,  leaked 
out,  and  their  men  were 
beaten  overwhelmingly  in 
countrv  and  town.  The 
House  of  Commons  elect- 
ed was  more  than  ever 
hostile  to  the  king  and 
court,  and  James  dissolved 
it,  in  wrath  and  disgust, 
after  a  session  of  two  months,  in  which  no  bill  was  passed. 
It  was  called  the  "  Addled  Parliament,"  because  it  had 
brought  nothing  forth. 

194.  Spanish  Courtship.  For  seven  years  more  there 
was  no  Parliament,  and  the  government  went  on  from 
bad  to  worse  along  unconstitutional  ways.  In  his  need 
of  money,  the  rich  dowry  to  be  expected  with  a  Spanish 
infanta  became  an  object  of  increased  desire  to  James; 


GEORGE   VILLIERS,   DUKE   OF   BUCK- 
INGHAM. 


362 


THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1614-1617 


and  his  second  son  Charles,  now  heir  to  the  crown,  and 
approaching  a  marriageable  age,  was  put  forward  as  a 
suitor  for  her  hand.  The  Spaniards  again  encouraged 
the  suit.  The  impending  struggle  in  Germany  and  the 
prospect  of  renewed  war  with  the  Dutch  gave  them 
stronger  reasons  than  ever  for  wishing  to  keep  England 
on  their  side.  In  appearance,  James  had  bound  himself 
already  to  the  opposite  party  in  Europe,  by  giving  his 
daughter  Elizabeth  in  marriage  to  the  Elector  Palatine, 
a  Protestant  German  prince  ;  but  the  prospect  of  a  Span- 
ish alliance  turned  him  squarely  around,  and  filled  him 
with  visions  of  an  influence  at  Madrid  that  should  keep 
Europe  at  peace.     That  the  Spanish  court  ever  intended 

to  permit  the  marriage 
is  open  to  grave  doubt ; 
but  its  cunning  diplo- 
macy was  able  to  keep 
James  bargaining  for 
the  prize  through  some 
years,  while  his  sub- 
jects looked  angrily  but 
helplessly  on. 

195.  The  Fate  of 
Sir  "Walter  Raleigh. 
The  king's  eagerness 
for  amity  with  Spain, 
and  the  opposing  eager- 
ness of  many  English- 
men to  reopen  war  with 
that  power,  worked 
tragically  together  to  bring  a  great  man  to  his  death. 
Brooding  in  his  long  imprisonment  over  the  projects  of 
American  adventure  from  which  he  had  been  snatched, 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  persuaded  himself  that  he  knew  where 


SIR   WALTER    RALEIGH. 


i6i7-i6i8]    WANING    REVERENCE    FOR    ROYALTY.     363 

to  find  some  of  the  rich  mines  of  "El  Dorado,"  —  that 
mythical  land  of  gold  which  men  dreamed  of  in  those 
days,  as  being  hidden  somewhere  in  the  heart  of  South 
America.  At  last  he  was  given  liberty  for  the  search, 
—  not  pardoned,  but  released  from  the  Tower,  with  his 
old  death  sentence  still  in  suspense,  —  and  he  had  to 
pledge  his  very  life  that  he  would  do  nothing  hostile  to 
Spain.  He  was  prostrate  with  fever  when  his  little  fleet 
reached  the  Guiana  coast  (161 7),  and  was  forced  to  stay 
behind,  while  his  young  son  arid  some  of  his  men  went 
up  the  Orinoco  to  seek  the  imagined  mines.  The  Span- 
iards, knowing  his  plans,  were  lying  in  wait.  The  Eng- 
lish attacked  them  and  were  repulsed ;  young  Raleigh 
fell ;  the  failure  was  complete  ;  and  Sir  Walter,  broken- 
hearted, returned  home,  to  lay  his  gray  head  on  the 
block,  and  to  pay  the  vengeful  price  that  Spain  demanded 
from  King  James  for  the  friendship  which  he  truckled 
meanly  to  win. 

196.  The  Thirty  Years'  ^War.  In  161 8,  the  long-threat- 
ened conflict  between  Protestant  and  Catholic  Germany 
was  opened  by  a  revolution  in  Bohemia,  which  placed  the 
crown  of  that  kingdom  in  dispute  between  the  Emperor 
Ferdinand,  head  of  the  House  of  Austria,  and  the  Elec- 
tor Palatine,  son-in-law  of  King  James  (see  page  343). 
The  unhappy  elector  was  not  only  driven  from  Bohemia, 
but  lost  his  electoral  states,  and  Germany  was  plunged 
for  a  whole  generation  into  the  most  horrible  of  all  Euro- 
pean wars.  Meantime,  the  English  people  were  shamed 
and  enraged  by  the  ignoble  attitude  towards  these  criti- 
cal events  in  which  they  were  kept  by  their  king.  By  a 
prompt  and  positive  policy,  in  one  direction  or  the  other, 
he  mio^ht  have  either  held  back  the  Elector  Frederick 
from  his  fatal  mistakes,  or  saved  him  from  their  worst 
results  ;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  he  might,  by  firm 


364  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1618-1621 

action,  have  brought  the  whole  dreadful  war  to  a  close 
at  some  early  stage.  As  it  was,  he  only  meddled  in  fee- 
ble ways,  with  a  watchful  eye  for  smiles  or  frowns  at 
Madrid.  If  he  allowed  English  volunteers  to  go  to  the 
Palatinate,  he  also  gave  authority  to  raise  English  regi- 
ments for  the  service  of  Spain ;  and  he  refused  shelter 
to  his  own  daughter  in  England  through  fear  of  the 
anti-Spanish  influence  she  might  have. 

Apparently  the  one  man  besides  Buckingham  who  had 
influence  with  James  was  Gondomar,  the  pro- 

Gondomar.  i  i        o  •   1  •    •  1        t-       t   1 

loundly  able  Spanish  mmister  at  the  English 
court,  and  he,  by  vast  superiority  of  mind  and  will,  rarely 
failed  to  dominate  both  the  favorite  and  the  master  whom 
the  favorite  led. 

197.  The  Third  Parliament  of  King  James.  In  the 
autumn  of  1620,  the  Elector  Frederick's  Palatine  domin- 
ions were  seized,  not  by  Austrian  but  by  Spanish  troops, 
and  James  did  then,  for  a  moment,  make  some  show  of 
resentment,  and  indulge  in  threatening  talk.  He  went 
so  far  as  to  summon  Parliament  again,  to  ask  supplies 
for  war,  and  the  greater  part  of  England  was  wild  with 
joy.  In  the  following  January,  Parliament  met,  and 
proved  to  be  a  remarkable  body  of  strong  and  earnest 
citizens,  largely  of  the  Puritan  stamp.  They  came  to- 
gether with  an  anxious  wish  to  avoid  all  quarrelling  with 
the  king,  and  to  act  with  him  heartily  in  aid  of  the 
elector  and  his  friends.  But  James's  momentary  impulse 
in  that  direction  had  already  cooled,  and  he  would  take 
no  decided  course. 

In  June,  Parliament  was  adjourned  ;  in  November,  it 
was  summoned  again,  the  king  being  once  more  in  the 
mood  to  give  help  to  his  daughter  and  son.  But  the 
patience  of  the  Commons  was  worn  out.  They  were  no 
longer  able  to  refrain  from  speaking  plainly  on  the  Span- 


1621-1622]    WANING    REVERENCE    FOR    ROYALTY.     365 

ish  match  and  the  whole  Spanish  poHcy  of  James.  Their 
memorial  on  these  subjects  drew  a  letter  of  astounding 
insolence  from  Gondomar,  the  Spanish  envoy  in 
England,  to  the  king,  whom  he  haughtily  called  mar's 
upon  to  punish  the  House,  because,  he  dared 
to  write,  "  I  have  no  army  here  at  present  to  punish 
these  people  myself."  Instead  of  resenting  so  unheard-of 
an  insult  to  the  nation  and  himself,  King  James  directed 
all  his  wrath  against  the  Commons,  in  abusive  and  threat- 
ening letters,  which  wholly  denied  their  claim  to  free 
speech,  and  violently  reasserted  all  his  own  pretensions 
to  absolute  power  in  government  by  divine  right.  The 
Commons  in  reply  entered  a  memorable  protestation  in 
their  journal ;  whereupon  the  king  came  down  to  the 
House  and  tore  the  leaves  on  which  it  was  written  from 
the  book.  A  few  days  later  (January  6,  1622)  he  dis- 
solved the  Parliament,  and  sent  a  number  of  its  leading 
members  to  the  Tower. 

198.  The  Disgrace  of  Lord  Bacon.  During  the  ses- 
sion of  this  Parliament,  it  gave  attention  to  a  scandalous 
fresh  growth  of  monopolies  and  patents  which  Bucking- 
ham and  his  parasitic  crew  had  started  up.  Its  inves- 
tigations wakened  a  bitter  feeling  against  Lord  Bacon, 
and  circumstances  came  to  light  which  led  to  the  charge 
that,  in  his  high  office,  as  lord  chancellor,  he  had  taken 
bribes.  He  was  brought  to  trial  and  it  was  proved,  and 
he  acknowledged,  that  he  had  accepted  large  gifts  from 
people  who  were  parties  in  suits  before  him.  He  could 
plead  in  defence  the  lax  customs  of  his  day  ;  but  Bacon, 
the  great  philosophic  thinker,  was  one  whose  standards, 
in  conduct  as  well  as  in  thought,  should  have  been  higher 
than  those  of  common  men.  The  trial  of  Lord  Bacon, 
which  drove  him  from  his  office  in  disgrace,  was  a  revival 
of  the   long-suspended  power  of  parliamentary  impeach- 


^66 


THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.     [1620-1621 


ment,  and  gave  one  more  sign  of  the  resurrection  of  con- 
stitutional government  in  the  EngUsh  realm. 

199.  The  Voyage  of  the  Mayflower  and  the  Found- 
ing of  Plymouth  Colony.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  these 
events  in  Old  England  that  the  settlement  of  New  Eng- 
land in  America  was  begun.  The  Scrooby  congregation 
of  Independents  which  sought  shelter  at  Leyden,  in 
Holland,  from  King  James's  persecution,  in  1608  (see  sec- 
tion 180),  obtained  permission  in  1620  from  the  London 
Company  (or  London  branch  of  the  Virginia  Company) 


THE  MANOR-HOUSE    AT    SCROOBY,    WILLIAM    BREWSTER  S    RESIDENCE. 


to  make  a  home  for  themselves  on  the  part  of  that  com- 
pany's American  grant  which  is  now  the  New  Jersey 
coast.  In  the  fall  of  the  same  year  their  memorable 
voyage  to  America  was  made,  in  the  little  ship  May- 
flower, which  was  driven  out  of  its  course,  and  landed 
them,  not  where  they  intended,  but  in  Cape  Cod  Bay. 
There  they  had  no  rights  ;  but  during  the  next  year  they 
procured  a  patent,  or  grant,  from  the  "  Council  for  New 
England,"  under  which  name  the  Plymouth  branch  of 
the  Virginia  Company  had  been  reorganized  ;  and  thus 
the  Plymouth  Colony  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  was  planted 
in  a  bleak  and  stony  land. 


1623-1625]    WANING    REVERENCE    FOR   ROYALTY.     367 

200.  Prince  Charles  at  Madrid.  The  final  folly  in 
the  Spanish  marriage  business  was  committed  in  1623, 
when  Prince  Charles  went  with  Buckingham,  both  dis- 
guised, on  a  madcap  journey  to  pay  court  in  person  to 
the  princess  at  Madrid.  It  was  a  fool's  errand,  from 
which  some  knowledge  was  brought  back.  The  Span- 
iards supposed  that  the  prince  came  to  enter  the  Catho- 
lic church,  and  to  promise  the  restoration  of  Catholicism 
in  England.  They  could  scarcely  be  made  to  understand 
that  the  latter  was  impossible,  and  that  the  former  would 
lose  him  the  English  crown.  When  they  did  become 
convinced  that  his  visit  meant  no  such  thing,  their  utmost 
ingenuity  was  employed  for  six  months  in  trying  to  get 
rid  of  the  troublesome  suitor  without  a  quarrel  and  con- 
sequent war.  But  the  quarrel  was  not  to  be  escaped. 
Buckingham  and  Charles  returned  home  in  a  rage,  to 
lead  the  outcry  for  a  Spanish  war. 

201.  The  Last  Days  of  the  Reign.  As  an  advocate 
of  war  with  Spain,  Buckingham  won  a  short-lived  popu- 
larity that  was  immense.  A  new  Parliament  was  sum- 
moned, to  vote  supplies,  and  preparations  began ;  but 
nothing- effectual  was  done,  since  all  management  was  in 
Buckingham's  incompetent  hands. 

On  the  abandonment  of  the  Spanish  match,  a  wife  for 
Charles  was  sought  in  France.  That,  too,  would  bring 
a  Catholic  queen  into  England,  which  the  Protestants 
were  unwilling  to  have  done.  To  quiet  their  feeling 
against  the  French  marriage,  both  James  and  Charles 
gave  pledges  to  Parliament  that  no  promise  of  favor  to 
EnHish  Catholics  should  be  made.     They  soon  _ 

,    *^  ^  .      Proposals 

discovered,  however,  that  the  bride  from  Paris  of  mar- 
riage, 
could  no   more   be   had   without   that   promise 

than  the  bride  from  Madrid ;  and  thereupon  Charles  per- 
suaded his  father  to  sign  an  agreement  which  violated 


368  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.  [1625 

their  pledge.  This  seems  to  have  been  the  first  exhibi- 
tion by  Charles  of  the  falsity  in  his  nature  which  after- 
wards brought  calamity  to  the  country  and  ruin  to  him- 
self. 

While  arrangements  for  the  French  marriage  were 
pending,  James  was  stricken  with  a  fever  and  died  on 
Death  of  the  27th  of  March,  1625,  leaving  the  monarchy 
James.  ^^^  ^]^q  people  in  a  state  of  antagonism  well 
advanced  towards  the  conflict  of  war  that  was  soon  to 
be  reached. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

183.  James  I.  of  England  and  VI.  of  Scotland. 

Topics. 

1.  James's  claims  to  the  throne  and  the  feeling  against  him. 

2.  His  character  and  its  effect  on  the  people. 

3.  His  ideas  at  his  succession. 

References.  —  Bright,  ii.  592;  Green,  477-482;  Colby,  181-184; 
Gardiner,  P.  R,,  13-15  ;  Montague,  114,  115  ;  Ransome,  123,  124; 
Guest,  442,  443. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Give  and  define  the  phrase  which 
shows  James's  idea  of  his  kingship.  (Guest,  444.)  (2.)  This  is 
a  revival  and  extension  of  what  old  theory  of  kingship  ?  (3.) 
What  was  there  in  the  membership  of  the  House  of  Commons 
to  make  a  struggle  with  such  a  king  inevitable  ?  (4.)  What 
party  in  the  church  naturally  allied  itself  with  his  idea  of  king- 
ship, and  why? 

184.  The  King's  Dealings  with  Puritans  and  Catholics. 

Topics. 

1.  The  discussion  at  Hampton  Court  and  its  results. 

2.  The  bishops'  code  and  James's  treatment  of  Catholics. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  587-589. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  was  the  only  good  that  came 
of  this  conference?  (Bright,  ii.  587.)  (2.)  How  widely  is  this 
version  of  the  Bible  used  to-day?  (3.)  What  edition  is  supplant- 
ing it  ? 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND    QUESTIONS.      369 

185.  The  First  Encounter  of  a  Stuart  King  with  an 

English  Parliament. 
Topics. 

1.  Dispute  about  jurisdiction  over  elections  to  the  Commons. 

2.  Friction  between  the  Lords  and  Commons. 

3.  James's  dismissal  of  Parliament  and  address  of  the  Commons. 

4.  Sir  Francis  Bacon. 
REFERE^x•E.  —  Green,  480-482. 

186.  Plot  against  the  Government. 
Topics. 

1.  Catholic  discontent  and  plots. 

2.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  the  intrigue  with  Spain. 

3.  The  gunpo\vder  plot :  a^  participants  ;  b^  detection  ;  c^  results. 
REFERE^XE.  —  Bright,  ii.  589-592. 

187.  King  James  and  the  English  Parliament  again. 

Topics. 

1.  Agreement  over  anti-Catholic  laws. 

2.  Disagreement  over :  a^  post-nati ;  b^  Spanish  friendship. 

3.  Session  of  Parliament  indefinitely  suspended. 
Reference.  —  Green,  483-485. 

188.  Multiplied  Offences  of  the  Government. 

Topics. 

1 .  Decisions  of  the  Court  of  Chancery  and  the  Court  of  Exchequer. 

2.  Attitude  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench. 

3.  The  king's  favorites. 

Reference. —  Gardiner,  ii.  483,  484,  486-488. 

189.  The  Virginia  Colony  in  America. 
Topics. 

1.  James  River  colony. 

2.  The  London  and  Plymouth  companies. 

3.  First  failure  of  the  Plymouth  Company. 
Reference.  —  Colby,  1 71-174. 

190.  The  Plantation  of  Ulster  in  Ireland. 

Topics. 

1.  Subjugation  under  Mountjoy  and  Irish  chiefs  made  landlords. 

2.  Accusation  of  Irish  lords  and  confiscations  in  Ulster. 
Reference.  —  Green,  452-459. 


370         WANING    REVERENCE    FOR    ROYALTY. 

191.  Dissolution  of  the  First  Parliaraent  by  King 

James, 
Topics. 

1.  The  king's  demand  for  money. 

2.  Complaints  of  Parliament  and  its  dissolution  by  James. 

3.  The  king's  supporters  in  his  despotic  course. 
Reference. —  Bright,  ii.  592-595. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Who  calls  Parliament  and  dismisses 
it?  (2.)  What  does  it  mean  to  prorogue  Parliament?  (3.)  To 
dissolve  it?  (4.)  To  adjourn  it?  (5.)  How  early  was  regularity 
in  its  meetings  estabhshed?  (Taswell-Langmead,  268;  also 
Ency.  Brit.)  (6.)  How  frequently  does  it  meet  at  the  present 
time? 

192.  The  Reign  of  Favorites. 
Topics. 

1.  Devices  of  the  king  to  raise  money. 

2.  Deaths  of  Cecil  and  Prince  Henry. 

3.  Reigns  of  Somerset  and  the  Duke  of  Buckingham. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  592-599. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Describe  James's  court.  (Green, 
487.)  (2.)  How  did  James  create  new  peers  ?  (3.)  What  king  of 
the  Norman  family  sold  offices  in  this  way?  (4.)  What  excuse 
did  he  have  ? 

193.  The  Addled  Parliament. 

Topics. 

1.  The  scheme  of  the  undertakers. 

2.  Reason  for  the  nickname  "  addled." 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  599,  600. 

194.  Spanish  Courtship. 
Topics. 

1.  Government  without  Parliament. 

2.  Influence  of  Spanish  marriage  upon  James's  policy. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  604-606. 

195.  The  Fate  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh. 
Topics. 

1.  Raleigh's  release  and  search  for  "  El  Dorado." 

2.  His  failure  and  death. 
Reference.  —  Green,  488,  489. 


J 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.     37 1 

196.  The  Thirty  Years'  War. 

Topics. 

1.  Revolution  in  Bohemia  and  beginning  of  Thirty  Years'  War. 

2.  The  king's  policy  and  England's  disgust. 
Reference. —  Bright,  ii.  601-603. 

197.  The  Third  Parliament  of  King  James. 

Topics.  • 

1.  Reason  for  summoning  Parliament  and  its  desires. 

2.  Trifling  of  the  king  and  Gondomar's  insolence. 

3.  Parliament  dissolved  and  members  imprisoned. 
References.  —  Green,  489-493.     Growth  of  parliamentary  power 

in  the  reign  of  James  I. :  Gardiner,  ii.  500 ;  Bright,  ii.  588,  603, 
604;  Ransome,  126-137;  Montague,  115,  116;  H.  Taylor,  ii. 
210-252;  Taswell-Langmead,  492-496,  529-531. 

198.  The  Disgrace  of  Lord  Bacon. 

Topics. 

1.  Corruption  of  the  king's  supporters. 

2.  Accusation  of  Bacon,  his  defence,  and  disgrace. 

3.  Revival  of  the  power  of  impeachment. 
Reference.  —  Green,  490,  491. 

199.  The  Voyage  of  the  Mayflower  and  the  Founding 

of  Plymouth  Colony. 
Topics. 

1.  Scrooby  congregation  of  Independents. 

2.  Their  settlement  at  Plymouth. 
References.  —  Colby,  184-188;  Green,  505-509. 

200.  Prince  Charles  at  Madrid. 

Topic. 

I.  Charles  and  liuckingham  visit  Spain  and  return  in  anger. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  604,  605. 

201.  The  Last  Days  of  the  Reign. 
Topics. 

1.  Popularity  of  Buckingham  and  the  French  marriage. 

2.  Pledges  of  Charles  and  his  father,  and  Charles's  dupHcity. 

3.  The  king's  death. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  498-501. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 


THE    QUARREL    BETWEEN    KING    AND    PEOPLE. 


The  Second  Stuart  King:  Charles  I.     1625-1642. 

202.  Charles  I.  Charles  was  in  his  twenty-fifth  year 
when  he  came  to  the  throne.     Unhke  his  father,  he  was 

agreeable  in  person  and 
manner,  and  could  bear 
himself  with  the  dig- 
nity that  befits  a  king. 
In  blamelessness  of 
private  life,  in  many 
refinements  of  feeling 
and  taste,  he  offered  an 
example  to  be  admired. 
He  could  be  chaste,  he 
could  be  temperate,  he 
could  be  courteous ;  but 
he  could  not  be  up- 
right ;  he  could  not  be 
straightforward  in  what 
he  said  and  did  ;  he 
could  neither  deal  hon- 
orably with  opponents  nor  be  faithful  to  friends. 

This  weakness  of  integrity  was  balanced  in  Charles  by 
no  intellectual  strength.  He  was  narrow  in  his  views, 
arrogant  in  his  temper,  impatient  of  facts.  He  had 
learned  from  his  father  to  look  on  royalty  as  something 
divine,  and  on  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  people  as 


CHARLES    I. 


1625]  THE    QUARREL.  373 

mere  gracious  gifts  from  their  kings.  With  such  ideas 
and  such  a  character,  he  was  about  to  undertake  the 
government  of  a  nation  that  had  wakened  to  the  study  of 
its  own  past  and  was  discovering  that  the  recent  preten- 
sions of  its  sovereigns  had  no  historic  ground. 

203.  Bad  Faith  in  the  Beginnings  of  the  Reign.  On 
the  1st  of  May,  Charles  was  married  to  Henrietta  Maria 
of  France.  He  had  accomphshed  his  marriage  by  break- 
ing faith  with  the  Enghsh  ParHament,  to  satisfy  the 
French  court ;  having  accomphshed  it,  he  broke  the 
pledges  given  in  France,  in' order  to  escape  trouble  at 
home.  In  both  actions  his  evil  counsellor  was  Bucking- 
ham, whose  influence  over  Charles  was  even  greater 
than  it  had  been  over  James  ;  but  the  dishonesty  was 
characteristic  of  both.  They  had  promised  to  suspend 
the  laws  against  Catholics  in  England,  and  they  dared 
not  attempt  to  make  the  promise  good. 

204.  The  First  Parliament  of  King  Charles.  Both 
Charles  and  Buckingham  were  full  of  great  warlike 
designs,  and  had  rushed  into  undertakings  that  depended 
on  Parliament  for  means  to  carry  them  through.  Yet, 
when  Parliament  met  in  June  (1625),  the  king  would  sub- 
mit to  it  no  plain  statement  of  his  plans,  but  demanded 
in  vague  terms  an  extraordinary  supply,  for  purposes  of 
war,  to  be  voted  on  trust.  The  Commons  felt  no  trust 
in  the  king  or  his  minister,  and  required  to  know  more 
before  voting  supplies. 

For  two  hundred  years  it  had  been  the  practice,  at  the 
beginning  of  each  king's  reign,  to  grant  him  "tonnage 
and  poundage  "  (customs  revenue)  for  life.  But,  since 
the  late  king  had  assumed  authority  to  impose  and  in- 
crease duties  at  will,  the  Commons  now  declined  to  make 
the  grant  for  more  than  a  single  year.  Charles  haughtily 
resented  the  proceeding,  and  Parliament  was  dissolved, 


374  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.     [1625-1626 

while  the  tonnage  and  poundage  bill  waited  action  in  the 
House  of  Lords ;  but  duties  were  levied  as  though  it  had 
passed. 

205.  The  Cadiz  Expedition.  Buckingham  and  the 
king  soon  gave  an  exhibit  of  the  corruption  and  incom- 
petency with  which  the  public  business  was  being  done. 
They  sent  out  an  expedition  in  October,  with  no  plan  of 
action,  apparently,  but  expecting  to  capture  somewhere 
a  Spanish  treasure  fleet,  with  silver  enough  to  put  them 
at  their  ease.  It  was  wretchedly  manned,  rottenly 
equipped,  and  there  was  no  capability  in  the  command. 
It  failed  miserably  in  an  attempt  against  Cadiz,  and  its 
ships  straggled  home  w4th  neither  honor  nor  spoils. 

206.  The  Second  Parliament  of  King  Charles.  To 
everybody  but  Charles  and  his  favorite,  the  disgraceful 
mismanagement  of  the  Cadiz  expedition  justified  more 
than  the  distrust  which  the  Commons  had  expressed. 
To  the  king  it  signified  nothing  that  needed  to  be  ac- 
counted for  or  reformed.  After  failing  in  attempts  to 
raise  money  by  pawning  the  crown  jewels,  he  called 
another  Parliament,  and  treated  it  precisely  as  before. 
The  new  House  of  Commons  was  more  hostile  to  Buck- 
ingham than  the  old,  and  it  began  inquiries  which  led 
to  his  impeachment  for  trial  before  the  Lords  ;  but  the 
king  dissolved  Parliament  and  brought  the  trial  to  a 
close. 

At  this  session,  three  men  appeared  as  leaders  of  the 
Commons  who  were  destined  to  act  great  parts  in  Eng- 
lish affairs.  They  were  Sir  John  Eliot,  John 
Hampden,  Hampden,  and  John  Pym,  all  of  whom  had  sat 
ym.  .^^  Parliament  before,  but  had  taken  less  promi- 
nence in  its  work.  In  the  midst  of  the  session  King 
Charles  had  the  folly  to  arrest  Eliot  and  another  member 
for  bold  speaking  ;  but  that  audacious  interference  with 


I626-I627] 


THE    QUARREL. 


37b 


parliamentary  freedom  of  speech  produced  such  excite- 
ment, shared  even  by  the  House  of  Lords,  that  he 
quailed,  and  the  imprisoned  members  were  released. 

207.   Rupture  with  France.     Again  the  king  was  with- 
out any  lawful  provision  of  means  for  carrying  on  the  wars 
that   he  had  under- 
taken   in    Germany 
and  against   Spain  ; 
and  yet  he  was  fatu- 
ously   provoking    a 
quarrel  with  France. 
The  provocation  be- 
gan with  his  breach 
of  the  agreement  he 
had  made  at  the  time 
of   his   marriage,  to 
shelter  the  English 
Catholics   from    op- 
pressive laws.    That 
not    only    produced 
bad    feelins:   at   the 
French    court,    but 
caused  quarrels   between  Charles  and  his  young  wife, 
which  he  attributed  to  the  influence  of  the  companions 
who  came  with  her  from  France.     After  much  Queen 
unseemly  bickering,  he   expelled   her  chaplain  Henrietta, 
and  all  her  ladies  from  the  country,  and  thus  violated 
still  more  of  the  agreements  that  were  made  when  he 
received  her  hand. 

These  quarrellings  only  helped,  however,  to  widen  the 
breach  with  France  which  other  witless  measures  were 
bringing  about.  Richelieu,  the  great  minister  then  con- 
trolling the  French  government,  had  political  aims  which 
exactly  accorded  with  English  interests  and  desires.     He 


JOHN    PYM. 


376  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1627-1628 

wished  to  check  the  growth  of  the  Austro-Spanish  power, 
and  sought  to  act  in  cooperation  with  England,  Holland, 
and  the  other  Protestant  states  ;  but  Charles 
seemed  perversely  determined  to  drive  him 
from  that  friendly  course,  taking  an  arrogant  and  dicta- 
torial attitude  on  every  question  that  came  up.  It  was 
a  natural  consequence  that  France  finally  (March,  1627) 
entered  into  an  alliance  against  England  with  Spain,  and 
Charles,  with  no  money  and  no  parliamentary  support, 
had  doubled  the  war  on  his  hands. 

208.  The  Forced  Loan.  The  king's  conflicts  with 
Parliament  had  only  hardened  his  despotic  resolution,  and 
he  now  undertook  the  collection  of  a  forced  loan,  which 
was  levied  on  all  tax-paying  citizens  at  a  certain  fixed 
rate.  Those  resisting  were  imprisoned,  or  dragged  from 
their  homes  to  be  sent  into  the  army  or  the  fleet.  An 
opinion  to  support  the  measure  was  demanded  from  the 
judges,  and,  when  they  refused  it,  the  chief  justice  was 
dismissed  and  a  follower  of  Buckingham  was  seated  in 
his  place.  These  bold  undertakings  of  undisguised  des- 
potism had  no  small  success,  since  the  personal  suffering 
which  each  opponent  risked  was  very  great ;  but  increas- 
ing numbers  took  the  risk.  Men  like  Hampden  and 
Eliot  set  examples,  and  so,  too,  did  Sir  Thomas  Went- 
worth,  who  was  afterwards  to  become  the  chief  supporter 
of  the  king.  Though  a  large  sum  was  actually  wrung 
from  unwilling  lenders,  it  was  far  from  enough  to  meet 
the  needs  of  the  war  ;  and,  after  a  great  part  of  the  royal 
plate  had  been  sold,  Charles  yielded  to  necessity  and 
summoned  Parliament  once  more  (March,  1628). 

209.  La  Rochelle  and  the  Isle  of  Re.  Meantime, 
Buckingham  had  personally  undertaken  a  campaign  in 
P>ance,  and  had  failed.  He  had  led  an  expedition  of 
6000  men  to  the   Isle  of  Re,  which  lies  on  the  P>ench, 


1627-1628]  THE    QUARREL.  377 

coast,  at  the  entrance  to  the  harbor  of  the  city  of  La 
Rochelle.  The  Rochellese  were  Huguenots,  and  were 
induced  by  promises  of  help  to  undertake  a  fresh  revolt. 
But  the  English  proved  unable  even  to  reduce  a  strong- 
fort  that  was  held  by  the  French  king's  troops  on  the 
isle.  After  besieging  it  for  more  than  three  months, 
they  were  driven  to  their  ships  with  terrible  loss.  Buck- 
ingham had  proved  his  personal  valor,  and  had  shown 
soldierly  qualities ;  but  the  disaster  was  charged  against 
him,  and  increased  the  detestation  in  which  he  was 
held. 

210.  King  and  Parliament  again.  —  The  Petition  of 
Right.  The  Parliament  which  assembled  in  March  found 
Charles  still  disdainful  in  his  tone,  while  its  own  disposi- 
tion had  not  been  sweetened  by  recent  events.  It  was 
full  of  a  new  bitterness,  which  the  forced  loan  and  the 
arbitrary  imprisonments  had  stirred  up,  and  it  was  sternly 
resolved  that  the  liberty  and  the  property  of  Englishmen 
should  be,  in  some  way,  protected  against  such  intoler- 
able abuses  of  royal  power.  In  the  late  experience  of 
the  country,  the  protection  of  the  courts  had  failed.  A 
situation  so  perilous  to  personal  freedom  put  all  minor 
questions  out  of  sight,  and  the  Commons  would  give  no 
heed  to  foreign  enemies  until  they  had  settled  what  to 
do  in  defence  of  themselves  against  the  tyranny  at  home. 
Foremost  in  their  discussion  of  measures  was  Sir  Thomas 
Wentworth,  who  then  made  his  last  appearance  on  the 
popular  side. 

Deliberation  in  Parliament  over  the  action  to  be  taken 
was  careful  and  long,  with  scarcely  more  earnestness  in 
the  Commons  than  in  the  Lords.  Buckingham  and  the 
king  had  driven  a  majority  of  the  peers,  at  last,  to  strong 
sympathy  with  the  feeling  in  the  lower  House.  After 
various  proposals  and  changes  of  plan,  the  final  outcome 


378  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.  [1628 

of  the  discussion  was  an  instrument  known  as  the  "  Peti- 
tion of  Right,"  adopted  by  both  houses  and  sent  to  the 
king  for  the  assenting  answer  that  would  confirm  it  as 
part  of  the  constitutional  law  of  the  realm.  Charles,  who 
could  do  nothing  in   an  honest  way,  gave  his 

Evasive-  .      r        j.     •  •  ^  ^  rr       • 

nessof        answer  at  first  m  evasive  words,  only  onering 

^^^^'  a  vague  declaration  of  his  will  to  do  right. 
The  feeling  which  this  roused  in  both  houses  was  star- 
tling even  to  him,  and,  when  he  threatened  to  silence  Par- 
liament by  a  dissolution,  he  received  a  message  from  the 
House  of  Lords  which  warned  him  to  reconsider  his 
course.  For  once  he  did  so,  and,  being  again  asked  for 
a  straightforward  answer  to  the  Petition  of  Right,  he 
pronounced  the  customary  words  that  made  it  law. 

This  famous  declaratory  instrument,  which  ranks, 
among  the  constitutional  documents  of  English  history, 
Petition  of  Only  sccond  in  importance  to  the  Great  Charter 
Right.  itself,  was  designed  to  leave  no  longer  an  open 
question  as  to  the  right  of  the  king  to  extort  gifts,  loans, 
benevolences,  or  taxes  from  his  subjects,  without  parlia- 
mentary consent,  or  to  commit  them  arbitrarily  to  prison, 
or  to  quarter  sailors  and  soldiers  upon  them,  or  to  subject 
them  to  martial  law.  But  by  not  defining  the  term  "  tax  " 
it  still  left  room  for  controversies  to  arise. 

Almost  immediately,  the  disputing  on  that  point  began, 
when  the  Commons  undertook  legislation  concerning  the 
"  tonnage  and  poundage "  tariff,  which  the 
and  pound-  judgcs  had  decided  that  the  king  could  regu- 
late at  will.  By  a  summary  prorogation  of  Par- 
liament its  action  was  stopped.  But  it  had  voted  him 
a  liberal  money  grant,  which  enabled  him  to  fit  out  a 
new  expedition  to  relieve  Rochelle,  where  the  Hugue- 
nots were  still  expecting  English  help. 

211.    Assassination    of   Buckingham.      If    Bucking- 


1628-1629]  THE    QUARREL.  379 

ham's  influence  had  really  been,  as  was  believed,  the  cause 
of  misgovernment,  and  the  prime  source  of  trouble  be- 
tween king  and  people,  such  trouble  might  now  have 
disappeared  ;  for  Buckingham  was  assassinated,  by  one 
Felton,  at  Portsmouth,  in  August,  1628,  while  preparing 
to  take  command  of  the  new  expedition  to  Rochelle. 
But  Buckingham's  death  only  showed  that  the  troubles 
of  England  came  from  the  character  of  its  king. 

The  fleet  prepared  to  relieve  Rochelle  was  sent  under 
the    Earl   of    Lindsey,   and   completely   failed.  Faiiof 
The    beleaguered   town    surrendered,    and    no  ^o^^eiie. 
hope  of  success  appeared  in  any  of  the  various  fields  of 
war  that  had  been  so  rashly  entered  by  Charles. 

212.  Resistance  to  Tonnage  and  Poundage.  The 
interrupted  action  of  Parliament  on  tonnage  and  poundage 
had  instigated  many  merchants  to  resist  payment  of  the 
king's  impositions,  sometimes  by  force.  Goods  were 
seized,  men  imprisoned,  courts  appealed  to,  and  a  hot 
agitation  of  the  subject  was  soon  in  train.  The  proro- 
gation of  Parliament  had  been  until  October,  but  Charles 
found  reasons  for  postj^oning  the  meeting  until  January 
in  the  following  year  (1629). 

213.  Laud  and  his  Church  Party.  An  agitation  more 
widespread  than  that  concerning  tonnage  and  poundage 
was  then  heating  English  feeling  throughout  the  land. 
It  came  from  nothing  new,  but  simply  from  a  growing 
opposition  to  the  doctrines  and  practices  which  a  minority 
of  the  clergy,  supported  by  the  king,  were  forcing  on  the 
church.  To  a  great  extent,  the  issues  had  become  politi- 
cal, and  those  who  could  not  accept  the  high  notions  of 
royal  authority  that  were  held  by  the  king  and  supported 
by  the  ruling  clergy  were  driven,  more  and  more,  into 
the  so-called  Puritan  ranks. 

In  the  party  of  the  royalist   clergy,  as  they  may  be 


380 


THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1628-1629 


called,  a  leader, 
William  Laud, 
had  risen,  who  ac- 
quired as  fatal 
an  influence  over 
Charles  in  church 
matters  as  Buck- 
ingham had  exer- 
cised in  political 
affairs.  Laud  had 
the  priestly  dic- 
tatorial spirit,  as 
Charles  had  the 
kingly,  and  they 
worked  in  perfec- 
tion together.  Al- 
ready, as  Bishop 
of  London,  Laud 
was  more  po- 
tent in  the  church  than  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
whose  seat  he  was  afterwards  to  fill.  He  cared  little 
for  doctrinal  opinions,  but  greatly  for  the  forms,  cere- 
Laud's  monies,  and  outward  incidents  of  religion,  and 
position.  j^-g  ^^.-ji  ^^g  bent  upon  having  a  rigid  uniform- 
ity in  those,  while  doctrinal  controversy  should  be  sup- 
pressed. The  defining  of  the  creed  of  the  church  in  its 
Thirty-nine  Articles  had  not  stopped  such  controversy 
within  its  own  ranks  ;  for  both  parties  accepted  the 
articles,  each  finding  its  own  theology  in  them,  with 
consequent  disputing,  which,  in  Laud's  view,  ought  to  be 
stopped. 

Neither  party  dreamed  of  liberty  for  all  opinions  ;  the 
intolerance  of  the  age  was  common  to  both.  Each 
wished   to    subjugate   the   other ;    the   Calvinistic    Puri- 


WILLIAM    LAUD. 


1628-1629]  THE    QUARREL.  38 1 

tans  by  authority  of  Parliament,  where  their  ascendency 
had  become  complete,  and  the  ritualistic  clergy  by  au- 
thority of  the  king,  the  bishops,  and  the  clerical  Convo- 
cation of  the  church.  The  political  conflict  was  inflamed 
by  the  religious  strife.  To  suppress  controversy,  Charles 
was  now  easily  persuaded  to  issue  a  Declara-  TheDecia- 
tion,  commanding  that  no  man  thereafter  should  ^^^^°"- 
print  or  preach  anything  that  ''put  his  own  sense  or 
comment  "  into  the  meaning  of  the  Articles  of  the 
church,  or  anything  "  other  than  is  already  established 
in  Convocation  with  our  royal  assent." 

214.  The  Commons  in  Tumult.  The  Commons,  at 
their  meeting,  in  January,  1629,  took  up  the  question 
of  tonnage  and  poundage  angrily,  until  the  king  saw 
fit  to  assure  them  that  he  did  not  intend  to  levy  duties 
by  his  ''hereditary  prerogative,"  and  there  seemed  to  be 
fair  promise  of  an  amicable  settlement  of  the  dispute. 
But  then  the  religious  issue  was  brought  into  the  House, 
with  a  rush  of  bitter  feeling  that  swept  even  members 
like  Sir  John  Eliot  into  an  unreasonable  course.  They 
set  two  objects  before  themselves,  and  passionately  pur- 
sued both  :  (i.)  To  punish  the  bishops  and  clergymen 
who  were  introducing  what  they  looked  upon  as  "  popish  " 
innovations  in  church  ceremony  ;  (2.)  To  put  their  own 
theological  construction  on  the  Articles  of  the  church, 
and  to  allow  no  other  to  be  written  of  or  preached.  Pro- 
ceedings against  the  bishops  were  begun,  and  drew  from 
Oliver  Cromwell,  a  new  member,  his  first  brief  speech. 
An  effort  to  define  the  Articles  produced  nothing  but  a 
resolution  that  was  too  vague  for  any  practical  effect. 
But  all  the  promise  of  a  settlement  of  tonnage  and 
poundage  was  destroyed  by  the  passion  of  the  religious 
debate. 

On  the  2d  of  March,  the  House  received  a  royal  order 


382 


THE  CENTURY  OF  REVOLUTION. 


[1629 


scene  m 
Parlia- 
ment. 


to  adjourn,  and  it  was  believed  that  dissolution  would 
follow.  Eliot  and  others  determined  that,  before  their 
separation,  they  would  j^ass  resolutions  in  the  nature  of 
Closing  '^'"^  appeal  to  public  feeling  in  the  country.  To 
prevent  such  action,  the  speaker  attempted 
to  leave  the  chair  ;  but  he  was  forcibly  held 
down  by  two  members,  one  of  whom  put  the  resolutions 
to  vote,  in  the  midst  of  a  wild  tumult  and  struggle,  and 
they  were  adopted,  just  as  the  king,  with  an  armed  force, 
arrived  to  clear  the  chamber.  That  riotous  scene  was 
the  last  that  England  saw  of  any  Parliament  for  eleven 
years. 

215.  Government  without  Parliament.     Charles  was 
now  to  try  his  final  experiment  upon  the  patience  of  the 

English  people,  to  find 
how  long  they  would  en- 
dure to  be  taxed  and  ab- 
solutely ruled,  without 
even  the  forms  of  con- 
sent from  themselves.  He 
commanded  that  none 
should  petition  him  to  call 
a  Parliament  again,  and 
constitutional  counsels 
were  thus  denied  access 
to  his  ear.  He  revenged 
himself  on  Eliot  and  other 
leaders  of  the  Commons 
by  sending  them  to  the 
Tower,  evading  parlia- 
mentary privilege  by  charging  them  with  sedition  and 
riot.  Judges  had  been  made  pliant  by  a  few  summary 
changes  on  the  bench,  and  the  offending  members  were 
quite  at  the  mercy  of  an  implacable  king.      Standing  on 


SIR   JOHN    ELIOT. 


1629-1632]  THE    QUARREL.  383 

the  privilege  of  Parliament,  and  refusing  to  make  any 
defence,  they  were  condemned  to  imprisonment  and  heavy 
fines,  with  offers  of  grace  if  they  would  acknow-  imprison- 
ledge  their  fault.     One  by  one,  all  yielded  except  S^ea^h^J^f*^ 
Eliot,  who  calmly  refused  to  make  terms  with  ^^^°^- 
tyranny,  until  he  died,  after  three  years   and  a  half  of 
merciless  confinement,  deprived. of  proper  exercise  and 
air.     The  malignity  of  the  king  pursued  him  even  after 
death,  refusing  to  give  his  body  to  his  friends. 

Evidently,  after  the  dissolution  of  Parliament,  there 
was  some  reaction  of  sentiment  against  it,  for  a  time. 
Many  who  wished  to  check  the  king  drew  back  from  the 
extreme  ground  to  which  the  Commons  had  advanced. 
They  feared  absolute  power  in  Parliament  no  less  than  in 
the  crown.     Some  passed  entirely  over  to  the 

r--     -T-1  ITT-  Sir  Thomas 

royal  side.    Among  them  was  Sir  i  homas  Went-  went- 

■,■,■,-,  1  .  ^1        worth. 

worth,   wdio    had    accepted   a    seat   among  the 

peers  as  Viscount  Wentworth,  and  who  soon  shared  with 

Laud  the  most  intimate  friendship  and  confidence  of  the 

king. 

By  reviving  many  obsolete  royal  claims  to  fees  and 
fines  ;  by  inventing  many  new  ones  ;  by  creating  oppres- 
sive monopolies  again  ;  by  cheating  creditors  and  heaping 
up  debt  ;  by  breaking  engagements  abroad,  and  making 
the  nation  a  byword  for  weakness  and  shabby  ways,  the 
government  contrived  to  exist  without  lawful  parliament- 
ary grants.  The  Star  Chamber  court,  insti-  The  king's 
tuted,  or  recreated,  by  Henry  VII.  (see  section  ^l^;^^^^  ^^'^ 
121)  as  a  tribunal  for  curbing  the  greater  nobles,  "^o^ey. 
and  Queen  Elizabeth's  church  Court  of  High  Commis- 
sion (see  section  180),  now  became  more  formidable  in- 
struments of  despotism  than  ever  before,  being  used  for 
the  king's  profit,  as  well  as  for  the  gratifying  of  his  impe- 
rious will. 


384  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1628-1640 

In  1633,  the  archbishopric  of  Canterbury  became  va- 
cant, and  the  primacy  in  the  church  was  given,  as  long 
intended,  to  Laud.  From  that  day  there  was  no  peace 
in  England  for  those  who  resisted  Laud's  beliefs,  as  to 
the  place  of  a  communion  table  in  a  church,  or  as  to  vest- 
ments or  postures  in  worship ;  or  as  to  Sunday  amuse- 
Laud's  op-  nients,  or  as  to  the  morality  of  the  stage,  or  as 
pressious.  ^q  opinions  proper  to  be  put  into  books.  So 
sleepless  an  energy  of  censorship  in  religion  had  never 
been  known  before.  When,  in  1634,  one  Prynne  had  his 
ears  cut  off  for  writing  a  "  Scourge  of  Stageplayers," 
there  was  little  public  feeling  shown ;  but  when,  three 
years  later,  the  same  obstinate  Prynne  was  sentenced  in 
Star  Chamber  to  a  second  cutting  of  his  ears,  for  writing 
of  Sabbath  breaking  in  offensive  terms,  and  when  he 
suffered  with  two  other  like  offenders,  all  three  going 
then  to  imprisonment  for  life,  the  London  crowd  strewed 
flowers  in  their  path.  But  no  warning  was  taken  by 
Charles  or  Laud. 

216.  The  Puritan  Emigration  to  New  England.  So 
disturbing  and  discouraging  to  the  Puritans  was  the  state 
of  the  country  at  this  period  that  a  great  movement 
among  them  of  emigration  to  New  England  was  set  on 
foot.  A  small  settlement,  headed  by  John  Endicott,  was 
planted  at  the  site  of  the  present  city  of  Salem,  Massa- 
chusetts, in  1628.  In  1629,  a  royal  charter  was  procured 
by  a  corporation  entitled  "  The  Governor  and  Company 
of  Massachusetts  Bay,"  in  possession  of  which  a  large 
colony,  with  John  Winthrop  for  its  governor,  crossed  the 
Atlantic  in  the  following  year  and  established  homes 
where  Boston  and  the  neighboring  towns  have  risen  since. 
Others  followed  to  the  same  region,  from  which  they 
spread  into  the  Connecticut  Valley  and  to  Narragansett 
Bay,  until  New  P2ngland  is  believed  to  have  had  in  164O 


1633-1634]  THE    QUARREL.  ^  385 

a  population  of  20,000  souls.  The  charter  of  the  Com- 
pany of  Massachusetts  Bay  gave  power  to  its  governor 
and  council  for  any  legislation  not  in  conflict  with  Eng- 
lish laws ;  and  so  the  colony  entered  upon  a  remarkably 
independent  career,  which  it  was  able  to  pursue  for  many 
years. 

217.  Wentworth  in  Ireland.  In  the  same  year  in 
which  Laud  became  primate,  Wentworth  obtained  a  field 
for  the  exercise  of  his  great  administrative  powers,  by 
appointment  to  the  lord-lieutenancy  of  Ireland.  He 
governed  the  troubled  island  for  six  years,  with  an  un- 
doubtedly honest  purpose  to  better  the  condition  of  its 
people,  and  with  undoubted  success  in  many  respects. 
He  established  its  linen  industry,  improved  its  agriculture, 
increased  its  commerce,  and  left  it  more  generally  pros- 
perous than  when  he  came.  It  was  an  intelligent  despot- 
ism that  he  introduced,  but  it  was  a  despotism  more 
absolute  than  even  Ireland  had  experienced  before.  It 
was  what  he  and  Laud,  in  their  intimate  correspondence, 
called  "Thorough,"  stopping  at  nothing  short  of  the  full 
attainment  of  the  objects  which  their  own  judgment  de- 
termined to  be  good. 

218.  Ship-money,  and  Hampden's  Refusal  to  pay  it. 
Peace  had  been  made  with  France  in  1629,  and  with 
Spain  in  the  following  year ;  but  Charles,  notwithstand- 
ing his  troubles  at  home  and  his  want  of  means,  could  not 
refrain  from  incessant  attempts  to  play  a  part  in  European 
affairs,  for  which  he  needed  especially  some  show  of 
naval  strength.  His  attorney-general,  a  learned  lawyer, 
named  Noy,  recalled  to  mind  that  I^^nglish  kings  in  early 
times  had  required  coast  towns  and  maritime  counties 
to  furnish  needed  ships  in  time  of  war,  and  that  Queen 
Elizabeth  did  the  same  when  the  Armada  was  fought. 
Those  precedents  were  held  to  have  established  a  royal 


386  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1634-1637 

right,  which  Charles  exercised  at  once  (1634),  though  no 
war  could  be  shown  to  exist. 

There  was  a  fatal  success  in  the  device,  and  it  led  the 
mischievous  inventiveness  of  the  king's  bad  counsellors 
to  further  steps.  They  argued  that  if  seaport  towns  might 
be  called  upon  for  ships,  then  inland  towns,  with  equal 
reason,  might  be  called  upon  for  money  with  which  to 
build  and  maintain  ships.  Charles  thought  the  reasoning 
excellent,  and,  in  1635,  a  demand  for  "ship-money"  was 
made  on  the  whole  kingdom,  as  a  general  tax.  Legal 
resistance  seemed  hopeless,  because  the  judges  had  de- 
cided for  the  king  in  advance,  and  none  was 
effectively  made.  But  next  year,  when  the  de- 
mand came  again,  John  Hampden  determined  to  spend 
his  whole  estate,  if  need  be,  in  forcing  the  question  to  a 
full  and  open  trial,  rather  than  pay  the  twenty  shillings 
for  which  he  was  assessed.  Six  months  were  occupied 
in  the  trial  of  his  case,  all  England  listening  and  learn- 
ing what  the  issue  involved.  The  king  won  his  twenty 
shillings  from  John  Hampden,  of  course,  but  the  last  veil 
of  disguise  upon  the  despotism  he  was  setting  up  disap- 
peared in  the  argument  which  sustained  his  claim,  and 
its  nakedness  was  laid  bare. 

219.  Laudism  in  Scotland.  —  The  Bishops'  Wars. 
But,  after  all,  it  was  the  Scots  and  not  the  English  who 
first  brought  the  arrogant  career  of  King  Charles  to  a 
halt.  Pricked  on  by  Laud,  he  determined  to  force  the 
use  of  a  prayer  book  on  the  Scots,  and  to  strengthen 
the  feeble  episcopacy  which  his  father  had  succeeded  in 
setting  over  their  church.  His  plains  were  laid  in  1633, 
but  it  was  not  until  1637  that  the  prayer  book,  as  ap- 
proved by  Laud,  was  ready  to  be  sent  to  Scotland,  with 
the  king's  commandment  for  its  universal  use.  .  Then 
the  blood  of  the  Scottish  nation  boiled  up  in  wrath.     At 


I637-I638] 


THE    QUARREL. 


>87 


the  first   reading  of  the  book  in   the  great   Edinburgh 
church  of  St.  Giles  a  riot  occurred,  and  when  -^^^^  ^t  st. 
Charles  gave  sharp  orders  for  the  punishment  ^^^^^'s. 
of  the  rioters,  he  found  that  practically  the  whole  nation 
was  at  their  back. 

Men  of  every  class  swarmed  into  the  capital,  and  or- 
ganized measures  to  resist  the  attack  on  their  church. 
Four  committees,  called  The  Tables,  representing  nobles. 


ST.    GILES'S    CHURCH,    EDINBURGH. 

gentry,  ministers,  and  burghers,  were  appointed  to  act  for 
the  whole,  and  these,  sitting  together  at  Edinburgh,  be- 
came a  kind  of  improvised  Parliament,  holding  vastly  more 
power  than  those  who  acted  for  the  king.  Scottish  feel- 
ing grew  more  stern.  Early  in  1638,  the  people  set  forth 
their  cause  and  bound   themselves  together  in  it  by  a 


388  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.    [1638-1640 

National  Covenant,  the  signing  of  which  began  in  the 

Greyfriars'  churchyard  at  Edinburgh  and  was 

tionai  continued  in  every  part  of  the  land.     The  kins: 

Covenant.        ,  ^  -^   ^       .  ,  ,  =• 

threatened  to  prepare  for  war,  but  thought  bet- 
ter of  it,  and  in  September  he  offered  to  revoke  the 
prayer  book,  as  well  as  to  limit  the  bishops'  powers.  It 
was  too  late.  He  had  authorized,  at  the  same  time,  a 
General  Assembly  of  the  church  to  be  held  at  Glasgow, 
and  that  body,  when  it  met  in  November,  took  matters 
into  its  own  hands,  defiant  of  the  king.  It  deposed  the 
bishops,  abolished  episcopacy,  and  restored  the  Presby- 
terian system  in  full. 

After  that  revolutionary  action,  the  king's  authority 
could  only  be  recovered  by  arms,  and  he  undertook  pre- 
parations for  war ;  but  when  he  had  mustered  his  forces 
„    _.         on  the  border,  near  Berwick,  the  Scots  faced  him 

The  First 

Bishops'       with  an  army  so  much  better  than  his  own  that 

War. 

he  dared  not  fight.  He  made  a  treaty  with 
them  (June,  1639),  which  ended  what  was  called  the  First 
Bishops'  War. 

The  treaty  provided  for  another  General  Assembly,  and 
for  a  meeting  of  the  Scottish  Parliament,  or  Estates. 
In  both  meetings,  when  held,  the  proceedings  were  more 
defiant  of  the  king  than  before,  and  Charles  was  driven 
to  another  attempt  at  the  subjugation  of  his  northern 
kingdom  by  force.  This  time  he  was  persuaded  by  his 
councillors  to  seek  help  in  England  from  a  Parliament 
(April,  1640),  hoping  that  English  grievances  could  be 
put  out  of  mind  by  rousino^  feelinsf  against  the 

The  "Short  .  . 

Pariia-         Scots.     But  he  was  quickly  undeceived.     The 

ment." 

Commons  showed  more  readiness  to  take  sides 
with  the  Scots  than  with  the  king,  and  were  hastily  dis- 
solved after  a  fruitless  session  of  twenty-three  days. 
With  the  advice  of  his  evil  counsellors,  Charles  then  put 


1640]  THE    QUARREL.  389 

forth  a  second  effort  to  raise  an  army,  by  the  arbitrary 
impressment  of  men.  Wentworth,  who  had  come  over 
from  Ireland,  and  who  had  been  made  Earl  of  Strafford, 
was  the  animating  spirit  in  what  the  king  now  did.  But 
nothins:  could  overcome  the  unwillinerness  with 

,  11  r    11  1  1         The  Second 

which  the  royal  banners  were  followed  to  the  Bishops' 

War. 

north.  The  Scottish  force  boldly  crossed  the 
Tweed,  drove  the  disorderly  royal  bands  from  Newburn 
(August,  1640),  and  established  themselves  on  English 
soil.  The  Second  Bishops'  War  was  as  hopeless  a 
failure  for  the  king  as  the  first,  and  far  more  serious  in 
results.  The  Scots  dictated  their  own  terms  of  peace  : 
would  keep  their  army  on  foot  ;  would  have  it  paid  by 
the  king,  at  the  rate  of  250  pounds  a  day;  would  stay 
meantime  in  northern  England  until  everything  had  been 
arranged  ;  and  Charles  could  do  nothing  but  assent. 

220.  The  Long  Parliament.  In  the  desperate  situa- 
tion to  which  he  had  brought  himself,  the  king  still  tried 
to  evade  demands  in  England  for  a  meeting  of  Parliament, 
by  calling  a  Great  Council  of  Peers,  after  the  manner 
of  the  early  Norman  kings.  But  the  peers  would  only 
indorse  the  national  demand  for  a  Parliament,  and  he 
had  to  yield.  The  summons  went  forth,  and  a  Parlia- 
ment, overwhelmingly  Puritan  and  intensely  radical  in 
mind,  came  up  to  Westminster  with  the  fixed  resolve 
that  no  mandate  of  royalty  should  disperse  its  members 
until  it  had  done  for  England  some  saving  work.  It 
assembled  November  3,  1640,  and  on  that  day  the  power 
that  he  had  used  so  arrogantly  and  so  foolishly  fell  from 
Kins;  Charles. 

221.  Attainder  and  Execution  of  Strafford.  Almost 
the  first  act  of  this  Long  Parliament,  as  it  came  to  be 
called,  was  to  arraign  Wentworth,  Earl  of  Strafford, 
on    charges    of   high  treason,    committed  in  the    giving 


390 


THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION. 


[1640 


of  treasonable  counsels  to  the  king.  Strafford,  as  the 
ablest,  was  the  most  feared  of  all  the  royal  council ;  he 
was  hated  for  what  seemed  to  be  apostacy  in  his  course, 
and  he  was    suspected  of  having   planned  to  bring  an 

army  from  Ireland 
to  use  against  both 
English  and  Scotch. 
To  make  conviction 
more  sure,  the  pro- 
ceeding against  him 
by  impeachment 
was  changed  to  an 
act  of  attainder, 
which  condemned 
without  trial  and 
was  a  bad  exercise 
of  power.  Both 
houses  passed  the 
act,  and  Strafford's 
fate    was    then    de- 

THOMAS    WENTWORTH,    EARL    OF    STRAFFORD,         pCUdCnt  Oil  tllC 

honor,  the  courage, 
and  the  gratitude  of  the  king.  By  refusing  to  approve 
the  bill,  Charles  could  at  least  have  kept  his  own  hands 
clean,  and  possibly  he  might  have  made  the  execution 
of  Strafford  too  unlawful  a  deed  for  Parliament  to  com- 
mit. "  Upon  the  word  of  a  king,"  he  had  written  to  the 
unfortunate  man,  "  you  shall  not  suffer  in  life,  honor,  or 
fortune ;  "  but  the  word  of  a  king  in  Charles's  mouth 
was  a  faithless  word.  The  rage  of  London,  crying  for 
Strafford's  death,  was  more  than  he  had  the  manly  honor 
to  defy,  and  he  signed  the  act  which  was  the  death-war- 
rant of  his  faithful  servant  and  friend.  "  Put  not  your 
trust  in   princes,"  said   the  earl  with  stately  bitterness 


1640-1641]  THE    (2UARREL.  391 

when  he  heard  what  the  king  had  done,  and  he  went  with 
cahii  dignity  to  the  block. 

Next  to  Strafford,  Laud  was  most  hated  and  feared. 
He,  too,  was  accused  of  high  treason,  arrested, 
and  sent  to  the  Tower,  but  no  immediate  prose- 
cution was  begun.  The  habit  of  loyalty  still  kept  men 
from  imputing  guilt  to  the  king  himself.  He  was  as- 
sumed to  have  been  sinned  against  by  wicked  councillors 
and  ministers,  who  did  wrong  things  in  his  name. 

222.  Restoring  the  Constitution.  For  months,  after 
failing  in  plots  to  bring  an  armed  force  to  London,  Charles 
was  cowed  by  the  fierce  resolution  that  the  Commons  had 
shown.  He  gave  his  assent  to  bills  which  required  the 
election  of  a  Parliament  every  three  years,  whether  sum- 
moned by  the  king  or  not ;  which  took  away  his  power 
to  dissolve  or  adjourn  Parliament  without  its  own  con- 
sent ;  which  declared  ship-money  illegal  ;  which  made 
tonnage  and  poundage  dependent  on  parliamentary  con- 
sent ;  which  abolished  the  Star  Chamber  and  the  Court 
of  High  Commission, — which  stripped  the  king,  in  fact, 
of  all  the  tyrannical  prerogatives  he  had  claimed,  and  yet 
did  little  more  than  restore  the  constitution  to  what 
it  was  in  Lancastrian  times,  save  in  the  one  matter  of 
parliamentary  dissolution,  which  contained  a  revolution 
in  itself. 

In  all  these  measures  a  great  majority  of  the  Commons, 
following  the  lead  of  Hampden  and  Pym,  were  substan- 
tially agreed ;  but  when  they  came  to  deal  with  questions 
concerning  the  church  a  division  of  parties  appeared. 
One  extreme  party,  beginning  with  proposals  for  the 
exclusion  of  bishops  from  the  House  of  Lords,  de- 
manded finally  the  complete  abolition  of  that  office 
in  the  church,  and  brought  in  what  they  described  as 
a  "root  and  branch  bill."     They  were  resisted,  not  only 


392  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.  [1641 

by  the  clerical  party,  but  by  a  party  of  moderate  men, 
who  wished  to  preserve  episcopacy,  while  seeking  to  lib- 
eralize the  constitution  of  the  church.  Lucius  Gary, 
Falkland  Lord  Falkland,  one  of  the  largest-minded,  no- 
andHyde.  \^\q^i  gentlemen  of  his  day,  and  Edward  Hyde, 
who  appears  in  later  times  as  Earl  of  Clarendon,  were  the 
leaders  of  these.  From  that  day  the  two  parties  diverged, 
and  unity  of  opposition  to  the  king  was  broken  up. 

223.  Insurrection  in  Ireland.  These  divisions,  with 
some  revival  of  ill-feeling  between  English  and  Scotch, 
and  a  reckless  stirring  up  of  the  fear  of  Puritans  that 
was  felt  in  Ireland,  gave  new  hopes  to  Charles.  He 
went  to  Scotland  to  carry  on  intrigues,  and  he  schemed 
at  the  same  time  with  Irish  Catholics  for  an  army  to  be 
used  in  England  for  his  support.  Nothing  came  of  his 
work  in  Scotland,  but  his  plotting  in  Ireland  had  terrible 
effects.  It  fired  the  passions  which  Wentworth's  harsh 
government  had  prepared,  and  an  insurrection  broke  out 
(October,  1641)  that  set  England  aflame  with  excitement 
when  news  of  it  arrived.  How  widespread  and  savage  a 
massacre  of  English  settlers  in  Ulster  and  other  parts 
of  Ireland  occurred,  is  a  question  in  dispute  to  this  day ; 
but  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  fury  of  the 
rising  cost  great  numbers  of  lives,  though  early  accounts 
went  wildly  beyond  the  truth. 

224.  The  Grand  Remonstrance.  A  new  question  was 
now  to  be  faced  :  How  could  forces  for  dealing  with  the 
Irish  insurrection  be  raised  without  giving  a  dangerous 
instrument  into  the  king's  hands  ?  Fresh  divisions  were 
produced  between  the  two  houses  and  between  extreme 
and  moderate  men  in  both.  These  were  widened  by  the 
determination  of  Pym  and  his  followers  that  the  whole 
tyrannical  conduct  of  the  government  of  King  Charles, 
from  the  beginning  of  his  reign,  should  be  plainly  reviewed 


I64I-1642] 


THE    QUARREL. 


393 


and  set  forth  in  a  Grand  Remonstrance,  ostensibly  ad- 
dressed to  the  king,  but  in  reahty  a  powerful  arraignment 
of  the  king,  intended  to  revive  the  memory  of  his  treach- 
eries and  tyrannies  in  men's  minds.  Many  thought  this 
a  needless  raking  up  of  old  complaints,  after  Charles 
had  yielded  so  much,  and  the  Grand  Remonstrance  was 
carried  (November,  1641)  by  a  bare  majority  of  eleven. 

It  was  soon  after  this  that  the  king's  courtiers  began 
to  deride  the  London  crowds,  which  hooted  the  bishops 
and    uttered    Puritan    cries,    by    calling    them 
"Roundheads,"   because    their    hair   was  close  heads  and 
cut,  whereas  the  fashion  of  the  day  among  the 
gentry  was  to  wear  it  long.     The  nickname  grew^  in  use 
until  it  became  a 
common   designa- 
tion  for  the  par- 
liamentary party, 
while     those     on 
the     king's     side 
were  called  "  Cav- 
aliers,"    probably 
taking   the  name 
to  themselves   as 
a  boast  that  they 
represented  what 
the         Romans 
would  have  called 
the  *' equestrian  " 
class. 

225.  The  King 
and      the      Five 

Members.  If  Charles,  even  at  this  time,  had  been  capa- 
ble of  a  temperate  and  straightforward  course,  he  could 
probably  have  won  back  to  himself  a  stronger  party  than 


JOHN    HAMPDEN. 


394  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.  [1642 

that  led  by  Pym.  But  he  struck  down  his  last  chance 
by  a  senseless  act.  Having  secretly  schemed  an  im- 
peachment of  five  members  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
Pym  and  Hampden  included,  on  the  charge  that  they 
had  traitorously  endeavored  to  subvert  the  laws  and  gov- 
ernment of  the  kingdom,  he  went  personally  (January  3, 
1642),  with  a  following  of  armed  men,  to  Westminster 
Hall,  intending  to  seize  them  as  they  sat  in  the  House. 
Warned  of  his  coming,  the  five  members  had  withdrawn, 
and  he  missed  his  prey ;  but  by  this  crowning  outrage 
he  had  put  the  issue,  between  Parliament  and  himself, 
beyond  peaceful  settlement,  and  had  forced  an  appeal  to 
arms. 

226.  Preparations  for  War.  Quitting  Westminster 
Hall,  as  an  unsafe  place,  the  Commons  followed  their 
threatened  colleagues  to  the  city,  but  returned  a  few 
days  later  in  triumph,  escorted  by  great  bodies  of  the 
London  people,  who  had  risen  in  arms.  The  king  left 
Whitehall  in  affright,  never  to  enter  it  as  a  free  man 
again.  A  great  part  of  the  Lords  remained  still  in  their 
House,  acting  with  the  Commons,  making  Parliament 
complete.  Moderate  men  on  all  sides  labored  still  to 
find  a  ground  of  peaceful  compromise  and  avert  civil 
war.  For  four  months  the  fruitless  effort  was  prolonged, 
and  never  with  a  chance  of  success. 

It  was  not  now  the  obstinate  arrogance  of  Charles, 
but  the  unyielding  resolution  of  a  radical  majority  in 
the  Commons,  that  put  peace  beyond  hope.  Apparently 
they  had  no  wish  to  avoid  war,  for  two  reasons,  that  can 
be  well  understood  :  (i)  They  saw  no  safety  for  them- 
selves or  for  the  country  in  any  settlement  that  would 
depend  on  the  good  faith  of  Charles ;  (2)  they  were  con- 
templating a  religious  revolution  that  was  not  in  the  least 
likely  to  succeed  without  force.     During  these  months 


1642]  THE    QUARREL.  395 

of  the  winter  and  spring  of    1642  the  uncompromising 
attitude  was  theirs,  not  the  kin^r's.     When  the 

.  ^  Spirit  of 

Lords  had  yielded  to  their  demand  for  exclu-  theCom- 
sion  of  bishops  from  the  upper  House,  the  king 
yielded,  too,  and  approved  the  bill.  On  the  more  vital 
question,  of  the  control  of  the  militia,  he  offered  great 
concessions  at  last,  but  refused  to  abdicate  his  office  in 
military  affairs  entirely,  as  the  Commons  insisted  that 
he  must  do.  It  was  on  that  question  that  peace-making 
hopes  were  finally  wrecked,  and  a  warlike  arraying  of 
forces  began. 

But  those  questions  were  only  on  the  surface  of  the 
conflict,  after  all.  The  true  causes  of  civil  war  were 
the  determination  of  a  large  part  of  the  subjects  of  King 
Charles  to  take  all  power  of  trick,  treachery,  and  oppres- 
sion out  of  his  hands,  whatever  other  evils  they  might 
create  in  so  doino^,  and  their  equal  determina- 

.  ...  .  Puritan 

tion  to  have  tJieir  turn  in  dictating  beliefs,  determina- 
forms  of  worship,  and  system  of  discipline  to 
the  church.  Of  these,  it  was  the  latter  — the  animus  of 
religious  feeling  —  that  gave  its  real  energy  to  the  parlia- 
mentary revolt.  There  was  no  thought  of  religious  lib- 
erty in  its  aims  ;  the  Puritan  intentions  were  as  intolerant 
as  the  policy  of  Laud.  Nor  was  there  much  conception 
of  freedom  in  the  political  plans  on  the  parliamentary 
side.  Their  result,  when  accomplished,  was  a  revolution 
that  simply  transferred  sovereignty  from  the  king  to 
the  House  of  Commons,  with  powers  of  oppression  un- 
checked ;  and,  with  the  possession  of  those  powers,  the 
tyrannical  temper  flashed  up  as  readily  in  parliamentary 
votes  as  it  had  in  royal  commands. 


396  THE    QUARREL. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

202.   Charles  I. 

Topic. 

I.  Charles's  character  and  views. 
References.  —  Bright,  ii.  608,609;  Green,  495  ;  Montague.  118; 

Ransome,  138,  139. 

203.  Bad  Faith  in  the  Beginnings  of  the  Reign. 

Topic. 

I.  Charles's  marriage  and  his  broken  pledges. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  608-614. 

204.  The  First  Parliament  of  King  Charles. 

Topics. 

1.  Charles's  designs  and  his  treatment  of  Parliament. 

2.  Attitude  of  Commons  and  their  dissolution. 

3.  The  king's  levies. 
Reference. —  Gardiner,  ii.  502,  503. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  were  the  legal  and  illegal 
sources  of  the  king's  revenues?  (Ransome,  151-155.)  (2.)  What 
might  be  said  to  constitute  the  private  property  of  the  crown  ? 
(3.)  What  contributed  to  make  Charles's  court  expensive  ?  (Traill, 
iv.  76.)  (4.)  How  would  this  need  for  money  make  for  parlia- 
mentary greatness  ? 

205.  The  Cadiz  Expedition, 

Topic. 

I.  Its  plan  and  failure. 
Reference.  —  Green,  496-500. 

206.   The  Second  Parliament  of  King  Charles. 

Topics. 

1.  Its  attitude  and  impeachment  of  Buckingham. 

2.  Eliot,  Hampden,  and  Pym. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  615-617. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Trace  Eliot's  career.  (Green,  497- 
499,  502,  505,  515.)    (2.)  Trace  Pym's  career.     (Green,  535,  536.) 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.        397 

207.  Rupture  with  France. 
Topics. 

1.  Causes  which  led  to  the  rupture. 

2.  France  joins  Spain  against  England. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  52-57. 

208.   The  Forced  Loan. 

Topics. 

1.  Despotic  levy  and  attempts  to  enforce  the  same. 

2.  Resistance  forces  Charles  to  summon  Parliament 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  505-508. 

209.  La  Rochelle  and  the  Isle  of  Re. 

Topics. 

1.  Buckingham's  expedition  to  France. 

2,  Effect  on  English  feeling  of  its  failure. 
Reference. —  Bright,  ii.  621. 

210.  King  and  Parliament  again.  —  The  Petition  of 

Right. 
Topics. 

1.  Charles's  attitude  and  the  new  grievances  of  Parliament. 

2.  Union  of  Lords  and  Commons  upon  the  Petition  of  Right. 

3.  Charles  compelled  to  accept  it. 

4.  Importance  of  petition  and  its  contents.    . 

5.  Contest  about  the  term  "tax." 

References.  —  Bright,  ii.  622-624;  Green,  501,  502;  Ransome, 
142-144;  Montague,  119;  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  57-60;  Taswell- 
Langmead,  539-548  ;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  266-274.  Money  bills  and 
the  Commons  :  Taswell-Langmead,  574,  footnote. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  is  the  right  of  habeas  cor- 
pus? (2.)  Why  is  it  a  fundamental  safeguard  to  the  liberty  of 
the  subject?  (3.)  Is  the  right  of  habeas  corpus  ever  suspended? 
(Montague,  142,  143.)  (4.)  Was  this  a  peculiarly  English  right, 
or  was  it  general  ?  (5.)  How  was  the  validity  of  the  Act  of 
Habeas  Corpus  tested  in  the  time  of  Charles  I.?  (Bright,  ii. 
619,  620.) 


39S  THE    QUARREL. 

211.  Assassination  of  Buckingham. 
Topics. 

1.  Buckingham's  influence  removed. 

2,  Surrender  of  Rochelle. 
Reference.  —  Green,  502-504. 

212.  Resistance  to  Tonnage  and  PoundagCo 

Topics. 

1.  Opposition  of  merchants  to  the  king's  levy. 

2.  Defection  of  the  Court  of  Exchequer. 
Reference. —  Gardiner,  ii.  512. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  were  the  names  of  the  other 
two  ordinary  courts?  (2.)  How  did  these  differ  in  theory  from 
the  courts  of  High  Commission  and  of  the  Star  Chamber?  (Ran- 
some,  124.)  (3.)  In  practice,  how  was  the  king  able  to  dominate 
the  ordinary  courts  ? 

213.  Laud  and  his  Church  Party. 

Topics. 

1.  Dissensions  in  the  church. 

2.  Archbishop  Laud's  character  and  attitude. 

3.  Intolerance  of  both  parties  and  Charles's  declaration. 
References.  —  Green,  509-514;  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  75-82,  85-90. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  was  the  idea  of  toleration  pre 

mature  at  this  time?  (Gardiner,  P.  R.  106.)  (2.)  Why  did  Par- 
liament take  issue  with  the  declaration  of  Charles  I.  when  they 
had  submitted  to  those  of  his  predecessors  ? 

214.  The  Commons  in  Tumult. 
Topics. 

1.  Discussion  of  tonnage  and  poundage, 

2.  The  religious  issue  and  the  two  aims  of  Parliament. 

3.  Appearance  of  Oliver  Cromwell. 

4.  Eliot's  resolution  and  the  dissolution  of  Parliament. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  65-69. 

215.   Government  without  Parliament. 
Topics. 

1.  Refusal  to  summon  Parliament,  arrest  of  Eliot  and  others. 

2.  Reaction  asrainst  Parliament  and  defection  of  Wentworth. 

3.  Government's  measures  to  obtain  money. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   ANt)    QUESTIONS.      399 

4.  Revival  of  Star  Chamber  and  Court  of  High  Commission. 

5.  Laucrs  oppressions  and  the  reaction  among  the  people. 
References.  —  Green,  514-520;  Bright,  ii.  627-629. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  are  commercial  monopolies? 

(2.)  How  did  Parliament  regard  them?  (3.)  What  were  some  of 
the  monopolies  granted  by  Charles?  (Bright,  ii.  629.)  (4.)  What 
was  the  tenor  of  Prynne's  "  Scourge  of  Stageplayers  "  ?  (Gar- 
diner, ii.  519.) 

216.   The  Puritan  Emigration  to  New  England. 

Topics. 

1.  John  Endicott  and  the  founding  of  Salem. 

2.  John  Winthrop  and  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 
Reference.  —  Green,  505-509. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Of  what  church  were  the  Puritans? 
(2.)  After  going  to  America,  what  change  did  they  make  in  their 
church  government  ?  (3.)  Why  was  this  a  natural  change  for  a 
colony  settling  in  a  new  country  to  make  ?  (4.)  Who  had  a  voice 
in  settHng  the  affairs  of  the  colony?  (5.)  Where  did  they  meet 
for  such  discussions?  (6.)  If  this  meeting  turned  its  attention  to 
civil  affairs,  what  would  it  be  called? 

217.  Wentworth  in  Ireland. 

Topics. 

I.  His  government  of  Ireland. 

Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  632-636. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  is  the  most  important  export 
from  Ireland  to-day  ?  (2.)  Is  the  surface  of  Ireland  such  as  to 
make  sheep-raising  profitable?  (3.)  Why  did  Strafford  build  up 
the  flax  industry  if  that  tended  to  destroy  the  wool  industry? 
(Cunningham  and  McArthur,  135-138.)  (4.)  What  views  were 
current  at  that  time  regarding  the  commerce  of  colonies  ?  (5.) 
Is  that  the  right  policy  to  pursue  with  colonies  ?  (6.)  From  what 
you  know  of  the  troubles  in  Ireland,  what  must  have  been  the 
condition  of  Irish  agriculture?  (7.)  How  far  was  the  English 
government  responsible  for  this  ?  (8.)  When  James  I.  ascended 
the  throne,  why  did  the  Irish  Catholics  look  for  kindness  from 
him?  (9.)  Did  the  Scotch  colony  which  Strafford  planted  tend 
to  promote  harmony  ? 


400  THE    QUARREL. 

218.  Ship-money  and  Hampden's  Refusal  to  pay  it. 

Topics. 

1.  Charles's  restless  ambitions  and  Noy's  advice. 

2.  Demand  for  ship-money  and  John  Hampden's  resistance. 
References.  —  Green,  527-531;  Bright,  ii.   629,  630;  Gardiner, 

P.  R.,  91-94;  Guest,  456,457;  Montague,  120,  121;  Ransome, 
154,  155;  Taswell-Langmead,  561-576;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  265,  286- 
290. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  did  Hampden  object  to  this 
tax  of  twenty  shillings  ?  (2.)  Why  was  Parliament  especially 
interested  in  the  outcome  of  his  trial  ?  (3.)  Contrast  the  navy 
of  those  days  with  that  of  to-day.  (4.)  Of  what  use  to  a  country 
is  a  navy?  (5.)  Who  has  the  largest  navy  of  to-day  ?  (6.)  What 
service  did  Charles  render  the  navy?  (Traill,  iv.  48.)  (7.)  Why 
then  did  the  people  oppose  him  ? 

219.  Laudism  in  Scotland. 
Topics. 

1.  King  James's  church  policy  in  Scotland. 

2.  Charles's  reforms  and  the  riot  of  St.  Giles. 

3.  The  Tables  and  the  National  Covenant, 

4.  Action  of  the  General  Assembly  and  the  First  Bishops'  War. 

5.  Charles's  efforts  to  obtain  support  in  England. 

6.  The  Second  Bishops'  War  and  the  terms  of  peace. 
References.  —  Bright,  ii.  636-644.     Presbyterians  in  Scotland: 

Gardiner,  P.  R.,  102-108;  Bright,  ii.  652,  653  ;  Green,  522-525. 

220.  The  Long  Parliament. 
Topics. 

1.  Great  council  of  peers. 

2.  Temper  of  the  new  Parliament  summoned. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  T10-125;  Green,  535-547;  Bright, 

ii.  644-658;   Montague,   124-127:  Ransome,   158-162;  Taswell- 
Langmead,  577-586;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  308-348. 

221.  Attainder  and  Execution  of  Strafford. 

Topics. 

1.  Act  of  attainder  against  Strafford. 

2.  Charles  deserts  Strafford . 

3.  Arrest  of  Laud  and  assumption  as  to  guilt  of  king. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.     4OI 

References.  —  Bright,  ii.  645-649. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Trace  the  career  of  Strafford.  (Gar- 
diner, ii.  508,  514.)  (2.)  Define  treason.  (3.)  Was  Strafford  guilty 
of  treason?  (4.)  Is  a  bill  of  attainder  justifiable.''  (5.)  What 
excuse  for  it  in  this  case  ?  (6.)  Describe  his  trial  from  Bright, 
ii.  645-649.  (7.)  This  impeachment  of  ministers  shows  that  the 
Parliament  regarded  ministers  as  responsible  to  whom  ? 

222.  Restoring  the  Constitution. 
Topics. 

1.  Work  of  Parliament. 

2.  Dissension  in  Parliament  over  the  church  question. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  113-118. 

223.   Insurrection  in  Ireland^ 

Topics. 

1.  Charles's  intrigues. 

2.  The  Ulster  massacre. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  119,  120. 

224.  The  Grand  Remonstrance. 
Topics. 

1.  New  questions  in  Parliament. 

2.  Object  of  Pym's  party. 

3.  Roundheads  and  Cavahers. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  534;  Guest,  452,  453;  Bright,  ii. 
656 ;  Green,  540-543 ;  Taswell-Langmead,  590-597 ;  H.  Taylor, 

ii.  311-313- 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  was  Parliament  divided  polit- 
ically? (Bright,  ii.  656.)  (2.)  How  was  it  divided  religiously? 
(3.)  Was  the  political  or  religious  object  at  length  attained?  (4.) 
The  Grand  Remonstrance  was  the  embodiment  of  what  sort  of 
control  ?  (5.)  The  Long  Parliament  left  the  constitution  in  what 
shape  ?     (Montague,  127.) 

225.  The  King  and  the  Five  Members. 

Topic. 

I.  Attempt  to  arrest  five  members  and  its  results. 
References.  —  Gardiner,   P.  R.,   122-124;  Bright,  ii.  657,  658; 

Green,     544-546;    Taswell-Langmead,    597-606;   H.  Taylor,   ii. 

315-317- 


402  THE    QUARREL. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  was  wrong  about  Charles's 
attempt  at  impeachment?  (2.)  Describe  his  visit  to  the  House. 
(Green,  544-546-) 

226.  Preparations  for  War. 

Topics. 

1.  The  Commons  supported  by  the  people. 

2.  Obstacles  to  peace  presented  by  the  Commons. 

3.  Concessions  by  the  king's  supporters. 

4.  True  causes  for  the  civil  war. 

5.  The  result  of  the  revolution. 

References.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  ch.  iii.  Agriculture 
and  the  reclamation  of  the  fens  :  Cunningham  and  McArthur, 
182-184;  Gibbins,  109-111;  Rogers,  452-460;  Traill,  iv.  115- 
122.     Social  life:  Traill,  iv.  157-172. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 


THE  OVERTHROW  OF  THE  MONARCHY. 


Charles  I.     1642-1649. 

227.  The  Eve  of  the  Civir  War.  ]^y  May,  1642,  the 
hopelessness  of  a  peaceful  settlement  was  becoming 
plain,  and  members  of  the  moderate  party,  as  well  as  the 
thorough  partisans  of  the  king,  began  to  slip  away  from 
both  houses  of  Parliament,  going  to  join  Charles  at  York, 
where  he  had  then  fixed  his  court.  Military  prepara- 
tions were  active  on  both  sides,  and  the 
king  was  intriguing  for  foreign  aid.  He 
applied  to  Scotland  for  assistance,  which 
was  refused  ;  and  Queen  Henrietta,  who 
had  acquired  great  influence  over  her  hus- 
band, went  abroad,  vainly  seeking  help 
from  Denmark  and  the  Dutch. 

In  July,  Parliament  had  forces  in  the 
field,  with  the  Earl  of  Essex  in  chief  com- 
mand, and  had  secured  control  of  the  fleet ; 
in  August,  the  king  formally  raised  his 
standard  at  Nottingham,  summoning  loyal 
subjects  to  its  defence.  England  was  then 
divided  into  hostile  camps.  Generally,  the  party  of  Par- 
liament controlled  the  counties  of  the  south  and 

....  r    1      1  •  -1      Round- 

east,  while  that  01  the  kmg  was  stronger  m  the  heads  and 

north   and   west.      Generally,  too,   nobles   and 
gentry  went  to  the  side  of  the  crown,  yeomen  and  towns- 
men into  the  parliamentary  ranks,  but  that  social  division 


A    CAVALIER. 


404  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.      [1642-1643 

was  far  from  complete.  There  were  many  of  rank  and 
estate  who  opposed  the  king,  and  many  who  stood  by 
him  in  the  towns  and  on  the  farms. 

228.  The  First  Battles.  At  the  outset,  there  was 
little  of  military  training  in  the  forces  on  either  side,  and 
the  advantage  belonged  naturally  to  the  Cavaliers,  espe- 
cially to  their  mounted  troops,  commanded  by  the  king's 
nephew,  Prince  Rupert,  of  the  Palatine  family,  who  won 
the  first  success  of  the  war  in  a  skirmish,  near  Worces- 
ter, at  Powick  Bridge.  The  main  royal  army  was  then 
at  Shrewsbury,  preparing  to  move  against  London,  which 
it  presently  did.  Essex,  who  had  been  at  Worcester, 
intercepted  the  march  at  Edgehill,  close  by  Banbury, 
where  the  first  serious  battle  was  fought  (October  23). 
Rupert,  in  a  headlong  charge,  drove  the  Roundhead 
cavalry  from  the  field,  and  kept  up  a  long  pursuit,  leav- 
ing the  weaker  part  of  the  king's  forces  to  a  desperate 
fight,  in  which  they  were  nearly  overcome.  They  held 
their  ground,  however  ;  Essex  withdrew,  and  the  royalists 
advanced,  taking  Oxford  and  Brentford,  and  approach- 
ing London  very  close.  But  the  militia  of  the  capital 
faced  them  at  Turnham  Green  so  resolutely  that  Charles 
shrank  from  the  risk  of  a  stroke  that  might  possibly 
have  ended  the  war.  He  established  his  headquarters 
at  Oxford,  and  for  nearly  a  year  nothing  effective  was 
accomplished  on  either  side. 

In  the  scattered  fighting  that  went  on  through  those 
months,  the  Cavaliers  had  most  frequent  success.  One 
otherwise  trivial  skirmish,  at  Chalgrove  Field,  near  Ox- 
ford (June  18,  1643),  cost  the  life  of  John  Hampden, 
Death  of  ^ho  happened  to  be  near  the  place  when  Ru- 
Hampden.  pgj-|-'g  cavalry  camc  galloping  down.  He  threw 
himself  into  the  fight  with  them,  as  a  volunteer,  and 
received  a  mortal  wound.     It  was  not  so  much  by  what 


ENGLAND  H 

^      rd  Berwick  AT    THE 

^  ^A,    ^.M  BEGINNING  OF  THE  CIVIL  WAR 

-  ~.J^^— '— \o  Flodden  Field 

^R.TweedK         j\  WITH  HISTORICAL  DETAIL 


A    locgltijde  i  W<<3t  of  Orepnirtcli  B 


1643] 


OVERTHROW  OF  THE  MONARCHY. 


405 


he  did  that  John  Hampden  was  raised  to  a  high  place 
in  Enghsh  history  as  by  the  impression  of  a  surpass- 
ingly noble  character  that  he  left  on  the  minds  of  politi- 
cal friends  and  foes. 

229.  Oliver  Cromwell  and  his  "  Ironsides."  At  mid- 
summer, in  1643,  the  situation  looked  promising  to  the 
king's  friends.  They  had  beaten  their  opponents  in  sev- 
eral minor  fights  ;  Bris- 
tol had  been  stormed  by 
Rupert,  and  Gloucester 
was  about  to  be  besieged. 
They  were  planning  to 
set  free  their  forces  in  the 
north  and  west,  for  co- 
operation with  the  army 
at  Oxford,  expecting  to 
hem  London  in,  and  they 
seemed  likely  to  succeed. 
Anxiety  among  the  Par- 
liamentarians was  giving 
rise  to  talk  of  peace. 

But  one  Puritan  leader, 
Oliver  Cromwell,  was 
making  ready  at  this  time  to  change  the  aspect  of  affairs. 
He  had  left  his  seat  in  Parliament,  to  raise,  first  a  com- 
pany and  then  a  regiment,  of  such  mounted  men  as  might 
face  the  best  of  Prince  Rupert's  troops.  Years  after- 
wards, in  a  speech,  he  told  of  the  plan  (being  no  soldier 
then)  on  which  he  set  to  work :  *'  I  raised  such  cromweU's 
men,"  he  said,  "as  had  the  fear  of  God  before  policy, 
them,  as  made  some  conscience  of  what  they  did ;  and 
from  that  day  forward,  I  must  say  to  you,  they  were 
never  beaten."  Cromwell's  men  were  never  beaten,  be- 
cause, first  of  all,  as  he  said,  he  had  picked  them  for  the 


OLIVER   CROMWELL. 


406  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.  [1643 

conscience  they  had  in  what  they  did,  and  also  because, 
having  the  genius  of  command,  he  brought  them  to  a 
perfect  discipline,  and  led  them  with  an  energy  that  no- 
thing could  resist. 

The  scene  of  Cromwell's  first  labors  in  the  field  was  a 
region  that  embraced  his  own  county  of  Huntingdon, 
with  Cambridge,  Hertford,  Essex,  Norfolk,  and  Suffolk, 
that  strongly  Puritan  district  acting  unitedly,  in 
ern  Associ-  an  Eastcm  Association,  as  it  was  called.  The 
Earl  of  Manchester  was  major-general  of  the 
association,  but  Cromwell,  first  as  one  of  four  colonels 
of  horse  and  soon  as  second  in  command,  was  its  master 
spirit  and  master  mind.  In  July  (1643),  he  was  sent  into 
Lincolnshire,  and  the  first  notable  proof  that  he  gave  of 
his  own  military  quality  and  that  of  his  men  (who  got  the 
name  of  "  Ironsides ")  was  at  Gainsborough,  where  he 
routed  a  large  body  of  the  mounted  Cavaliers,  and  then, 
encountering  their  main  army,  protected  his  infantry  in 
a  remarkable  retreat.  This,  according  to  one  of  his  con- 
temporaries, "was  the  beginning  of  his  great  fortunes, 
and  he  now  began  to  appear  in  the  world." 

Two  months  later,  Cromwell  joined  Sir  Thomas  Fair- 
fax, and  took  part  in  the  routing  of  a  body  of 

Wiiic6l)y.  . 

royalist  horse,  at  Winceby  (October  11),  which 
forced  the  Marquis  of  Newcastle  to  abandon  the  siege 
of  Hull. 

230.  The  First  Battle  of  Newbury.  •  Newcastle's  fail- 
ure in  the  north  had  frustrated  the  royal  plan  for  bring- 
ing his  army  to  join  a  movement  against  the  capital ; 
and,  meantime,  the  plan  had  been  equally  broken  up 
in  the  west.  It  depended  on  the  taking  of  Gloucester, 
which  the  king,  in  person,  besieged.  Essex  made  a  bold 
march  from  London,  with  the  train-bands  of  the  city,  to 
rescue  the  town,  and  Charles  withdrew  ;  but  Essex,  on 


1643]  OVERTHROW    OF    THE    MONARCHY.  407 

his  return,  was  fought  at  Newbury  (September  20)  and 
nearly  suffered  defeat.  The  noble  Falkland  was  among 
the  many  who  fell  in  this  fight. 

231.  The  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  with  the 
Scots.  Parliament  now  opened  negotiations  with  the 
Scots,  who  offered  help  against  Charles  on  the  condition 
that  their  Presbyterian  system  should  be  adopted  in  the 
organization  of  the  English  church.  But  most  of  the 
English  Puritans,  though  inclined  to  a  Presbyterian  sys- 
tem, were  unwilling  to  surrender  the  church  so  entirely 
to  the  control  of  its  clergy  as  the  Scotch  had  done. 
That  serious  obstacle  to  an  alliance  was  overcome,  how- 
ever, in  the  treaty  as  it  was  finally  framed.  The  agree- 
ment made  was  for  the  reformation  of  religion  in  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  "  according  to  the  Word  of  God  and  the 
example  of  the  best  reformed  churches."  "According 
to  the  example  of  the  best  reformed  churches  "  meant  to 
Scotch  Presbyterians  their  own  church  ;  "  according  to 
the  Word  of  God  "  meant  to  English  Puritans  their  own 
interpretation  of  the  Word  ;  and  thus  both  parties  were 
made  willing  to  sign  the  "  Solemn  League  and  Cove- 
nant," as  the  instrument  was  styled. 

The  alliance  with  the  Scots  was  the  last  work  of  John 
Pym,  who  had  been  thus  far  the  statesman  of  the  Puri- 
tan revolution,  the  strong,  inflexible,  sagacious 

11  1         1     1  1    T-.      1  •  •  ITT-      '^°^^  'Pym. 

leader  who  held  Parliament  to  its  work.     PI  is 

great  labors  were  undoubtedly  the  cause  of  his  death 

(December  8,  1643). 

An  Assembly  of  Divines,  appointed  by  Parliament, 
was  already  in  session  at  Westminster,  revisinc; 

.  '  o    rjij^g  West- 

the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  and  considering  ques-  minster 
tions    connected  with  the    constitution   of   the 
church,  but  entirely  subject  to  the  authority  of  Parlia- 
ment in  what  it  did. 


408 


THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1643-1644 


232.  The  King  looking  to  Ireland.  While  Parha- 
ment  was  arranging  its  alhance  with  the  Scots,  the  king 
had  looked  to  Ireland  for  reinforcements,  and,  by  a  truce 
with  the  insurgent  Catholics,  had  been  able  to  bring 
away  some  regiments  of  the  English  who  served  there. 
He  then  opened  negotiations  with  the  Irish  Catholics, 
who  were  willing  to  give  him  10,000  men,  in  return  for 
an  independent  Irish  Parliament  and  a  reestablished 
Catholic  church.  These  dealings  with  the  Irish  caused 
a  bitter  feeling  among  his  friends  and  seriously  harmed 
his  cause. 

233.  Marston  Moor  and  Lostwithiel.  In  the  spring 
of   1644,  a  Scottish  army,  under  Alexander  Leslie,  Earl 

of  Leven,  joined  Fair- 
fax, Manchester,  and 
Cromwell  in  besieg- 
ing the  Marquis  of 
Newcastle  at  York. 
By  a  long  march, 
Prince  Rupert  came 
to  Newcastle's  aid, 
and  reached  the  be- 
leaguered city  on  the 
I  St  of  July  with  1 8,000 
men.  Not  satisfied 
with  forcing  the  be- 
siegers to  withdraw, 
he  followed  them, 
with  Newcastle's  army 
added  to  his  own,  to 
Marston  Moor  (July 
2),  and  suffered  there  the  most  disastrous  defeat  that 
either  party  had  sustained  since  the  war  began.  Crom- 
well and  his  troops  were  the  winners  of  the  fight,  driving 


PRINCE    RUPERT. 


i644]  OVERTHROW   OF   THE    MONARCHY.  409 

Rupert's  cavalry  from  the  field  and  then  returning  to 
rescue  the  remainder  of  the  army  from  defeat.  The 
scattering  and  capture  of  the  royal  army  were  so  com- 
plete that  Rupert  gathered  only  6000  horsemen  from 
the  wreck.  Newcastle  fled  the  country  in  shame.  The 
kinof's  cause  was  lost  in  the  north. 

O 

This  orreat  success  of  the  Parliamentarians  in  the  north 
was  offset  in  a  large  measure  by  disagreements  among 
them  and  failures  in  the  south.  Essex  had  placed  nearly 
10,000  men  in  a  situation  at  Lostwithiel,  near  Fowey, 
in  Cornwall,  from  which  there  was  no  escape, 

Incompe- 

and  they  were  compelled,  m  September,  to  lay  tencyof 
down  their  arms.     In  the  following  month,  the  Manches- 
inertness  of    Manchester,   who   wanted   peace, 
caused  a  second  battle  with  the  king  at  Newbury  to  be 
practically  lost.     Both  Essex  and  Manchester  were  now 
discredited  as  military  commanders,  and  resolute  move- 
ments to  displace  them  were  begun,  with  Cromwell  in 
the  lead. 

234.  Growth  of  Independency  and  Republicanism. 
The  feeling  of  Cromwell  and  his  foUowers  at  this 
time  was  not  merely  that  of  soldiers  disgusted  with  in- 
active commanders  ;  it  had,  beyond  that,  a  religious  and 
a  political  side.  A  rapid  spread  of  thought  was  going 
on,  particularly  in  the  army,  which  doubted  the  need  of 
any  king,  and  which  doubted  still  more  whether  the  in- 
terests of  religion  required  one  creed,  or  one  form  of 
worship,  to  be  forced  on  all  men  by  one  oppressive 
church. 

A  few  broad  thinkers,  like  Milton  and  Roger  Williams, 
had  begun  to  lead  the  reason  and  the  moral  sense  of 
men  towards  religious  toleration  as  an  absolute  Christian 
principle  ;  but,  even  without  rising  to  their  view,  many 
others  were  being  forced  by  the  circumstances  of  the 


4IO  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.      [1644-1645 

time  to  see  the  folly  of  attempts  to  compel  men  to  think 
Religious  alike  in  matters  of  religion,  or  to  worship  God  in 
toleration,  ^^^q  prescribed  way.  Cromwell,  for  example, 
did  not  understand  toleration  as  a  principle,  for  he  had 
no  thought  of  extending  it  to  practices,  either  Roman 
or  Anglican,  that  seemed  idolatrous  to  him.  But,  in- 
side the  bounds  of  what  he  held  to  be  Protestant  belief 
and  worship  not  idolatrous,  he  wished  the  exercises  of 
religion  to  be  free,  in  such  congregations  as  people  chose 
to  form.  Such  ideas  of  a  limited  toleration  he  shared 
with  an  increasing  body  of  men ;  and  this  rising  party, 
to  which  the  old  name  of  the  Independents  was  given, 
was  soon  to  be  formidable,  with  a  man  like  Cromwell  at 
its  head. 

Generally,  the  Presbyterians,  who  formed  a  large  ma- 
jority in  Parliament,  were  carrying  on  the  war  with  a  view 
to  the  saving  of  the  monarchy,  after  forcing  the  king 
to  surrender  some  of  the  powers  that  he  claimed  and  to 
join  them  in  a  reconstruction  of  the  church.  Essex, 
presby-  Manchester,  and  other  military  chiefs  agreed 
Inl^inde-  ^^^^^  them,  and  acted  with  those  aims.  On 
pendents,  ■j-j^g  other  hand,  the  Independents  were  becom- 
ing convinced  that  the  war  could  have  no  satisfactory 
end  until  there  had  ceased  to  be  a  king  and  a  prescribed 
ceremony  in  the  worship  of  God.  Thus  the  original 
Puritan  party,  from  whose  resistance  to  a  tyrannical  king 
the  civil  war  sprang,  was  now  divided  into  two,  between 
which  there  was  coming  a  struggle  over  the  conduct 
and  the  objects  of  the  war. 

235.  The  Self-denying  Ordinance  and  the  New  Model 
Army.  The  situation  that  existed  in  the  fall  and  winter 
of  1644-45  called  Cromwell  back  to  his  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment, where  his  influence  soon  appeared  in  two  radical 
measures,  both  of  which  were   carried  after  a  contest 


1644-1645]    OVERTHROW    OF    THE    MONARCHY.  411 

quite  prolonged.  The  first,  called  the  Self-denymg  Ordi- 
nance, excluded  every  member  of  Parliament  from  mili- 
tary command  ;  by  which  means  Essex,  Manchester,  and 
others  of  their  kind  were  quietly  put  aside.  Cromwell 
shared  their  fate  —  for  the  time  being,  but  not  for  long. 
The  second  act  provided  for  a  reorganization  of  the  army 
on  a  national  footing,  supported  no  longer  by  voluntary 
contributions,  but  by  a  general  tax.  Over  the  army  of 
the  New  Model,  as  it  was  known.  Sir  Thomas  Fairfax 
was  made  commander-in-chief,  with  large  powers  in  the 
selection  of  officers  of  subordinate  rank.  The  office  of 
lieutenant-general  was  left  unfilled,  none  doubting  that 
Cromwell  would  occupy  it  in  due  time.  s 

Fairfax  was  a  soldier  who  ignored  parties,  religious  and 
political,  so  completely  that  none  knew  his  views.  But 
he  admired  Cromwell,  shared  his  spirit  in  the  war,  and 
was  open  to  his  advice.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  New 
Model  of  the  army  was  a  Cromwellian  model ; 

^  A  Crom- 

it  was  officered,  for  the  most  part,  by  fervently  weiiian 
religious  men,  who  filled  its  ranks  with  "  Iron- 
sides "  of  their  own  stamp.     It  gave  to  the  Independents 
a  power  which  the  Presbyterian  Parliament   would    be 
utterly  unable  to  resist,  if  a  serious  conflict  came. 

236.  The  Execution  of  Laud.  While  the  Self-denying 
Ordinance  and  the  army  bill  were  pending.  Archbishop 
Laud  suffered  a  long-delayed  retribution  at  the  hands  of 
those  whom  he  had  oppressed.  For  months  he  had  been 
on  trial  before  the  few  peers  who  remained  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  Then  his  enemies,  fearful  that  he  would 
escape,  resorted  to  a  bill  of  attainder,  like  that  which 
doomed  Strafford,  and  sent  him  to  the  scaffold,  on  the 
lOth  of  January,  1645. 

237.  Montrose  in  the  Highlands.  In  the  fall  of  1644 
a  threatening  movement  in  the  north  of  Scotland  was 


412 


THE   CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.      [1644-1645 


begun  by  James  Graham,  Marquis  of  Montrose,  originally 
a  Covenanter,  who  became  dissatisfied  with  the  govern- 
ment set  up  under  the  Duke  of  Argyle.  Having  adopted 
the  cause  of  the  king  with  fiery  zeal,  Montrose  made  his 

way  into  the  Highlands 
and  there  roused  the  clans 
that  were  enemies  of  the 
great  Clan  Campbell,  of 
which  Argyle  was  chief. 
In  his  hands  the  fierce 
Highlanders  became  ef- 
fective soldiers  and  car- 
ried all  before  them.  The 
lands  of  the  Campbells 
were  terribly  harried  ; 
large  forces  of  the  Cove- 
nanters were  defeated,  and 
Dundee  was  taken  and 
sacked.  Early  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1645,  Montrose 
was  prepared  for  an  actual 
conquest  of  the  Lowlands,  and  practically  accomplished 
it  for  the  moment  by  two  fresh  victories,  at  Alford  and 
Kilsyth.  Glasgow  and  Edinburgh  submitted  to  him,  and 
Argyle's  government  was  broken  up. 

238.  The  Battle  of  Naseby.  —  End  of  the  First  Civil 
War.  The  successes  of  Montrose  in  Scotland  came  too 
late.  Before  his  last  victories  were  won,  the  royal  cause 
in  England  had  received  a  shattering  blow.  Fairfax,  with 
his  new  army  well  in  hand,  had  obtained  authority  to 
quit  sieges  and  wasteful  scatterings  of  his  force,  and  to 
fight  Charles  as  soon  as  possible  in  the  open  field.  On 
the  request  of  the  army  and  the  petition  of  London, 
Cromwell    had    been   exempted    from    the    Self-denying 


JAMES  GRAHAM,    MARQUIS   OF   MONT- 
ROSE. 


1645-1646]    OVERTHROW    OF    THE   MOxNARCHY.  413 

Ordinance,  had  been  appointed  lieutenant-general,  and 
joined  Fairfax  just  in  time  to  take  part  in  the  decisive 
fight.  The  king's  army  was  brought  to  a  stand  at  the 
Northamptonshire  village  of  Naseby,  on  the  14th  of  June, 
and,  being  not  more  than  7500  strong,  against  nearly 
14,000,  it  was  utterly  crushed. 

A  political  no  less  than  a  military  disaster  overwhelmed 
the  king  at  Naseby.     By  the  capture  of  his  correspond- 
ence and   other  papers,  all  his  intrigues  with  discovery 
the  Irish  Catholics  and  with   the  French,  for  J^jJ^fg 
foreign  soldiery  to   be   brought   into  England,  i^^ngues. 
were  made  public,  and  inflamed  English  feeling  against 
him  anew. 

After  Naseby,  there  were  twelve  months  more  of  war, 
mostly  sieges,  before  the  royalists  were  completely  over- 
come. Cromwell  was  especially  busy  in  this  concluding 
work.  "  There  are  few  parts  of  England  where  one  fails 
to  meet  some  ruined  castle  or  dismantled  manor-  cromweu's 
house,  of  which  the  local  rumor  records  that  '  it  ^^^^^^^y- 
was  battered  down  by  Cromwell  in  the  troubles.'  "  ^  The 
most  important  sieges  were  of  Bristol,  where  Rupert 
surrendered  in  September,  and  of  Basing  House,  a  great 
stronghold  in  Hampshire,  stormed  and  destroyed  the 
next  month. 

During  September,  all  that   Montrose  had  gained  in 
Scotland  was  lost.      His  Highlanders  dropped  Defeat  of 
away,  until  only  a  few  hundreds  of  followers  Mo^t^ose. 
remained.     With  those  he  attempted  to  join  the  king  in 
England,  but  was  attacked  at  Philiphaugh,  and  his  little 
company  cut  to  pieces,  though  he  escaped. 

239.  The  King's  Surrender  to  the  Scots.  Long  after 
his  followers  generally  had  lost  hope,  the  king  kept  them 
under  arms.     Apparently  there  was  no  time  during  the 

1  F.  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromivcll,  ch.  v. 


414  THE   CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.      [1646-1647 

year  after  Naseby  in  which  he  might  not  have  made  terms 
fairly  favorable  for  himself  with  the  Scots,  and  even  with 
the  English  Presbyterians,  by  agreeing  to  their  religious 
demands.  But,  faithless  as  Charles  showed  himself  to 
be  in  so  much  of  his  conduct,  he  was  heroic  in  fidelity 
to  the  English  church,  and,  rather  than  consent  to  its 
overthrow,  he  steadfastly  declared  that  he  would  lose 
his  crown  and  his  life.  Negotiating,  more  or  less,  with 
all  parties  among  his  opponents,  he  sought  to  play  them 
against  each  other,  and  to  gain  time,  always  hoping  for 
some  advantage  to  himself  from  the  ill-temper  that  was 
growing  up  between  Presbyterians  and  Independents, 
Parliament  and  Army,  English  and  Scots.  It  was  not 
until  May,  1646,  when  his  last  refuge,  at  Oxford,  was 
about  to  be  attacked,  that  he  personally  surrendered, 
not  to  the  English,  but  to  the  army  of  the  Scots,  making 
his  way  to  their  camp,  before  Newark,  in  disguise. 

The  surrender  of  the  king  to  the  Scots  did  not  mean 
submission  to  their  terms.  He  still  thought  that  he 
could  work  them  to  a  quarrel  with  the  English  and  use 
them  for  his  own  ends.  Parliament  had  offended  them 
in  many  ways  ;  its  promised  payments  to  them  were  far 
in  arrears  ;  it  was  slow  in  establishing  the  Pres- 

Parliament  .  i    •      •  t     ^  i  , 

and  the        bytcrian  church,  and  it  mtended  to  make  that 

Scots  . 

church  subject  to  Parliament,  which  was  contrary 
to  Scotch  ideas.  The  situation  would  have  opened  oppor- 
tunities to  a  really  shrewd  opponent ;  but  Charles  schemed 
until  the  quarrelling  parties  were  more  ready  to  make 
terms  with  one  another  than  to  parley  longer  with  him. 

240.  The  King  given  up  by  the  Scots.  Before  the 
close  of  the  year  1646,  the  Scots  had  come  to  an  agree- 
ment with  the  English  Parliament,  in  accordance  with 
which  they  delivered  the  king  to  English  commissioners 
(F'ebruary  3,  1647),  3-^"^^  marched  away  to  their  own  coun- 


i647]  OVERTHROW   OF   THE    MONARCHY.  415 

try,  leaving  the  English  Presbyterians  and  the  Independ- 
ents to  settle  matters  between  themselves.  Those  two 
religious  parties,  one  controlling  Parliament  and  the  other 
controlling  the  army,  were  probably  both  opposed  by  a 
majority  of  the  whole  nation  ;  but  that  majority  could 
only  look  on  while  the  "  sectaries,"  as  they  were  called, 
strove  against  each  other  for  power. 

241.  Parliament  and  Army.  Parliament  brought  on 
the  strife  by  attempting  to  disband  the  army  without 
providing  for  arrears  of  pay,  and  by  treating  its  petitions 
with  insult  and  rebuke.  Cromwell  exerted  his  influence 
in  Parliament  and  in  the  army  to  make  peace ;  but  the 
course  of  the  parliamentary  leaders  left  him  no  chance. 

The  soldiers  had  organized  a  parliamentary  body  of 
their  own,  composed  of  representatives,  called  Agitators 
(using  the  word  in  the  sense  of  "agents"),  ^j^g 
elected  from  each  regiment,  and  were  giving  -^s^tators. 
close  attention  to  public  affairs.  Parliament  was  known 
to  be  secretly  negotiating  with  the  king,  and,  towards  the 
end  of  May,  Cromwell  learned  that  Charles  had  agreed 
to  an  establishment  of  the  Presbyterian  church  for  three 
years,  during  which  time  some  permanent  settlement 
should  be  arranged.  The  Scots  were  to  be  brought  in 
again  to  help  establish  the  king's  government  on  those 
terms.     That  information  determined  his  course. 

242.  The  King  in  the  Hands  of  the  Army.  When 
Cromwell  had  decided  to  lead  opposition  to  Parliament 
his  measures  were  prompt.  He  gave  secret  orders  to  a 
certain  Cornet  Joyce,  who  made  a  quick  march  to  Holmby 
House  with  a  picked  body  of  horse,  and  secured  posses- 
sion of  the  king.  The  movement  was  a  complete  sur- 
prise ;  Charles  was  successfully  removed  to  Newmarket 
(June  8,  1647),  and  held  there  under  guard. 

The  army  leaders  then  attempted,  without  success,  to 


4l6  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.  [1647 

make  terms  with  the  kmg,  and  to  persuade  Parhament, 
at  the  same  time,  to  fix  a  date  for  its  own  dissolution 
and  for  the  election  of  a  new  House.  A  period  of  con- 
siderable disorder  ensued.  The  Independent 
in  confu-  members  of  Parliament  were  frightened  away 
by  a  London  mob  ;  whereupon  the  army,  under 
Fairfax,  marched  into  the  city,  and  many  Presbyterians 
left  Parliament  in  alarm. 

Meantime,  fresh  proposals,  very  carefully  drawn  up  by 
Cromwell's  son-in-law,  Ireton,  had  been  submitted  to  the 
king.  They  outlined  a  scheme  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment, with  a  tolerant  church,  a  responsible  administra- 
tion, and  a  popular  Parliament,  which  went  farther  to- 
wards what  has  since  been  realized  in  England  than  any 
Proposals  political  plan  framed  before.  The  king  rejected 
to  the  king.  |-}^gj^-^  [^  j^jg  haughtiest  tone,  having  opened  a 

new  intrigue  with  the  Scots,  and  being  full  of  confidence 
that  a  powerful  army  from  the  northern  kingdom  would 
soon  pour  into  England,  to  make  him,  in  his  own  words, 
"really  king  again." 

But  the  "  Heads  of  Proposals,"  as  Ireton's  scheme  was 

known,  dissatisfied  a  large  faction  in  the  army  as  much 

as  they   did   the  kins:.     The  republican   Inde- 

The  Heads  ox 

of  Pro-  pendents  were  numerous,  and  some  of  them, 
^°^^  '  called  Levellers,  held  extreme  democratic  and 
socialistic  views.  They  were  opposed  to  all  dealings  with 
the  king.  Against  this  faction  Cromwell  stood  in  bold 
contention  for  many  months.  With  his  clear,  practical 
grasp  of  facts,  he  could  see  that  England  was  not  pre- 
pared for  republican  government ;  that  there  would  be 
failure  in  an  attempt  to  set  it  up  by  the  little  half -vision- 
ary party  on  which  it  must  depend ;  and  that  the  best 
hope  of  rescue  from  the  confused  political  state  into 
which  P2ngland  had  fallen  was  in  some  kind  of  guarded 


1647-1648]    OVERTHROW  OF  THE    MONARCHY.  417 

restoration  of  the  king  to  his  throne.  If  the  king  had 
been  any  man  except  Charles  I.,  Cromwell  and  other 
reasonable  men  of  the  time  might  have  found  a  way  to 
success. 

243.  Escape  of  the  King  to  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
Against  the  Heads  of  Proposals  the  democrats  brought 
forward  a  project  of  radical  revolution,  styled  the  *'  Agree- 
ment of  the  People,"  and  excited  a  mutiny  in  the  army, 
which  Cromwell  sternly  repressed.  There  were  threats 
at  the  same  time  against  the  king,  which  alarmed  him, 
and  he  contrived  to  escape  to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where 
he  hoped  to  be  safer  and  more  free.  He  was  confined, 
however,  in  Carisbrooke  Castle,  as  strictly  a  prisoner  as 
before,  yet  with  liberty  enough  to  be  able  to  finish  his 
intrigue  with  the  Scots.  He  signed  a  secret  "  Engage- 
ment "  with  their  agents  in  December,  1647,  which  pro- 
mised on  his  side  to  establish  the  Presbyterian  church  in 
England  for  three  years,  suppressing  all  the  sects,  and 
on  their  side  to  send  an  army  to  his  support.  Cromwell 
had  early  knowledge  of  what  the  king  was  doing,  and 
abandoned  further  efforts  in  his  behalf. 

244.  The  Second  Civil  War.  Movements  in  Scot- 
land to  carry  out  the  agreement  with  Charles  were  begun 
in  the  spring  of  1648.  They  were  followed  by  risings 
in  Wales  and  Kent,  with  the  London  Presbyterians  in  a 
threatening  mood.  Fairfax  suppressed  the  insurrection 
in  Kent,  and  Cromwell  dealt  with  that  in  Wales,  after 
which  the  latter  marched  northward  to  meet  the  Scots, 
who  had  entered  England  under  the  Duke  of  Hamilton, 
in  July,  and  taken  Carlisle.  With  8600  men.  Battle  of 
he  attacked  24,000,  according  to  his  reckoning  ^^^eston. 
of  the  enemy,  at  Preston,  on  the  17th  of  August,  and 
fought  and  pursued  them  for  three  days,  until  he  had 
slain,  captured,  or  scattered  them  all. 


4l8  THE    CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.     [1648-1649 

245.  Pride's  Purge.  While  the  second  civil  war  was 
being  thus  quickly  fought  out,  Parliament  had  reopened 
conferences  with  the  king,  on  the  old  plan  of  intolerance 
for  everything  except  the  Presbyterian  church.  This 
was  more  than  the  victorious  army  could  be  expected 
to  endure.  Cromwell,  Ireton,  and  others  urged  a  forci- 
ble dissolution  of  Parliament,  preparatory  to  a  new  elec- 
tion ;  but,  on  the  5th  of  December,  a  meeting  of  officers 
with  Independent  members  of  the  House  of  Commons, 
who  feared  the  result  if  an  election  should  be  held,  de- 
cided in  favor  of  what  was  styled  a  "  purging  "  of  the 
House,  by  expulsion  of  the  members  whose  doings  were 
disliked.  This  high-handed  measure,  which  ended  the 
last  pretence  of  constitutional  authority  in  the  English 
government,  was  carried  out  the  next  day  by  a  regiment 
of  soldiers,  commanded  by  Colonel  Pride.  One  hundred 
and  forty-three  members  were  thrust  from  the  House 
of  Commons  by  what  received  the  name  of  "  Pride's 
Purge,"  leaving  a  small  remainder,  known  afterwards  as 
"  the  Rump." 

246.  Trial  and  Execution  of  the  King.  The  ^'  purg- 
ing "  of  the  Commons  was  followed  by  clamors  for  the 
trial  of  the  king,  and  an  ordinance  for  his  arraignment 
was  adopted  by  the  fragment  of  a  House,  which  then 
proceeded  to  create  a  High  Court  of  Justice,  to  form 
which  135  commissioners  were  named.  Sixty-eight  of 
these,  only,  appeared  at  the  sittings  of  the  court,  in 
Westminster  Hall.  Cromwell  took  his  place  with  them  ; 
Fairfax  refused.  On  the  20th  of  January,  1649,  Charles 
was  brought  into  the  presence  of  this  court  and  impeached 
as  "  a  tyrant,  traitor,  murderer,  and  a  public  and  implacable 
enemy  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England."  He  proudly 
refused  to  recognize  the  tribunal  by  any  answer  or  de- 
fence, and  was  condemned  to  death.     A  scaffold  for  his 


1649] 


OVERTHROW   OF   THE    MONARCHY. 


419 


TRIAL   OF   CHARLES   I. 


execution  was  erected  at  the  front  of  the  palace  of  White- 
hall, and  there,  on  the  30th  of  January,  he  was  beheaded, 
submitting  to  his  fate  with  a  courage  and  dignity  that 
showed  his  character  at  its  best. 

No  man  ever  suffered  for  treason  in  England  who  had 
wronged  the  country  so  deeply  as  Charles,  or  brought 
so  dire  a  calamity  upon  it.     His  condemnation,  if  pro- 


420  THE   CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.  [1649 

nounced  by  a  lawful  tribunal,  and  his  execution,  if  com- 
manded by  the  nation,  would  have  been  indisputably 
just.  But,  as  it  was,  he  became  the  victim  of  a  usurpa- 
tion of  power  more  lawless  than  the  worst  of  his  own, 
and  was  so  glorified  in  his  death  on  the  scaffold  by  a 
semblance  of  martyrdom  that  all  the  falsities  of  his  life 
have  been  obscured. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

227.    The  Eve  of  the  Civil  War. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king  at  York  and  his  appeals  for  assistance. 

2.  Essex  in  command  of  the  parliamentary  forces. 

3.  Division  of  people  and  country  between  the  two  causes. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  54-58. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  For  what  two  reasons  did  men  turn 
to  the  king?  (2.)  Name  and  describe  two  noted  men  who  acted 
on  these  two  reasons  respectively.  (Green,  542.)  (3.)  How  did 
the  king  and  how  did  Parliament  get  money  for  war.  (Bright,  ii. 
665.) 

228.  The  First  Battles. 

Topics. 

1.  Cavalier  success  at  Powick  Bridge  and  Edgehill. 

2.  The  militia  at  Turnham  Green. 

3.  John  Hampden's  death  and  character. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  127-130;  Colby,  193-195. 

229.  Oliver  Cromwell  and  his  "  Ironsides." 

Topics. 

1.  Royalist  successes  early  in  1643. 

2.  Cromwell's  army. 

3.  Cromwell  at  Gainsborough  and  Winceby. 
References.  —  Bright,    ii.    662;    Harrison,    Oliver    Cromwell; 

Green,  553-596;  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  128-183  ;  Guest,  463-475  ;  Tas- 
well-Langmead,  611  ;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  325-355  :  Macaulay,  i.  91-108  ; 
Hallam,  ii.  2-32. 
Research  Questions. —  (i.)  Give  the  comparison  which  Crom- 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      421 

well  makes  between  the  roya]  forces  and  those  of  the  Parliament. 
(Gardiner,  P.  R.,  129.)  (2.)  What  sort  of  genius  did  this  show 
him  to  possess  ? 

230.  The  First  Battle  of  Newbury. 

Topic. 

I.  Essex's  efforts  to  raise  the  siege  of  Gloucester. 
Reference. —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  130,  131. 

231.  The  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  with  the 

Scots. 
Topics. 

1.  Parliament  negotiates  with  the  Scots. 

2.  Solemn  League  and  Covenant  ;   Westminster  Assembly. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  1 31-137. 

r 

232.  The  King  looking  to  Ireland. 

Topic. 

I.  Negotiations  with  Ireland  and  its  effect. 
Reference.  —  Green,  ^S'^^  55^- 

233.  Marston  Moor  and  Lostwithiel. 

Topics. 

1.  The  battle  of  Marston  Moor. 

2.  Royalist  victory  at  Lostwithiel. 

3.  Inefficiency  of  Essex  and  Manchester. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  73-78. 

234.  Growth  of  Independency  and  Republicanism. 

Topics. 

1.  Growing  feeling  as  regards  a  king  and  religious  toleration. 

2.  Differing  views  of   Presbyterians  and   Independents  on  the 

preservation  of  the  monarchy. 
References.  —  Presbyterians  and    Independents :    Gardiner,  ii. 
543;  Bright,  ii.  670-672,  680-684  ;  Green,  ^SS  I  Gardiner,  P.  R., 
130-142;  Macaulay,  i.  90,  91. 

235.  The  Self-denying  Ordinance  and  the  New  Model 

Army. 
Topics. 

I.  Cromwell's  two  measures  in  Parliament. 


422  OVERTHROW   OF   THE    MONARCHY. 

2.  Fairfax  and  the  army  of  the  New  Model. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  84-89. 

236.  The  Execution  of  Laud. 
Topic. 

I.  The  Bill  of  Attainder. 

237.  Montrose  in  the  Highlands. 

Topic. 

I.  His  Highland  army  and  its  victories. 

Reference. —  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  142,  143. 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  Of  what  race  were  the  Highlanders  ? 
(2.)  Why  would  they  naturally  take  the  side  of  the  king  ?  (3.) 
Why  would  they  make  good  soldiers  ?  (4.)  What  other  branch 
of  the  same  race  as  the  Highlanders  did  the  English  have  for 
neighbors  ?     (5.)  Which  side  did  they  take  in  the  civil  war  ? 

238.  The  Battle  of  Naseby.  —  End  of  the   First  Civil 

War. 
Topics. 

1.  Fairfax's  victory  at  Naseby  and  capture  of  the  king's  papers, 

2.  Close  of  the  war  in  England  and  Scotland. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  89-99. 

239.  The  King's  Surrender  to  the  Scots. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king's  obstinacy  and  his  tactics. 

2.  His  surrender  at  Oxford  and  renewed  intrigues. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  677-679. 

240.  The  King  given  up  by  the  Scots. 
Topics. 

1.  Scots  deliver  up  the  king. 

2.  Strife  for  power  between  the  sectaries. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  679,  680. 

241.  Parliament  and  Army. 
Topics. 

1.  Mistake  of  parliamentary  leaders. 

2.  The  Agitators. 

3.  Secret  negotiations  between  king  and  Parliament. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  104-1 10.  ■» 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    (2UESTI0NS.     423 

•  242.  The  King  in  the  Hands  of  the  Army. 

Topics. 

1.  Cromwell  secures  the  king. 

2.  Attempt  of  army  leaders  to  make  terms  with  the  king. 

3.  Fairfax  enters  London. 

4.  Ireton's  proposals  to  the  king  and  Charles's  reply. 

5.  The  Levellers  and  Cromwell's  view  of  the  situation. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  111-119. 
Research   Questions.  —  (i.)  What  danger  was  there  in  the  army 

overawing  the  Parliament  ?     (2.)  What  can  be  said  in  justifica- 
tion of  the  army's  action.     (Gardiner,  P.  R.,  148.) 

243.  Escape  of  the  King  to  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
Topics. 

I.  The  Agreement  of  the  People. 

I.  The  king  in  Carisbrooke  Castle. 

3.  The  secret  "  Engagement  "  with  the  Scots. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  684-686. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  Why  did  neither  party  feel  that  it 

was  possible  to  make  terms  with  Charles .''    (2.)  What  was  the 

king's  design  ?    (3.)  What  effect  did  the  breaking  out  of  war 

anew  have  on  the  feeling  toward  him  ? 

244.  The  Second  Civil  War. 
Topics. 

1.  Fairfax  in  Kent. 

2.  Cromwell  in  Wales  and  Scotland;  battle  of  Preston. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  120-126. 

245.  Pride's  Purge. 

Topics. 

1.  Parliament  reopens  negotiations  with  Charles. 

2.  Purging  of  the  House. 

Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  126-128. 

246.  Trial  and  Execution  of  the  King. 

Topics. 

1.  Creation  of  High  Court  of  Justice  and  trial  of  Charles. 

2.  His  execution. 

3.  Illegality  of  his  sentence. 

Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  128,  129. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

COMMONWEALTH  AND  PROTECTORATE. 

The  Rump  Parliament  and  Oliver  Cromwell.  1649-1660. 

247.  The  Founding  of  the  Commonwealth.  A  small, 
sifted  remnant  of  the  House  of  Commons,  elected  more 
than  eight  years  before,  was  all  that  the  wreck  of  consti- 
tutional government  in  England  had  now  left,  to  act  with 
pretended  authority  in  the  national  name.  Yet  this  little 
band  of  men  assumed  to  be,  not  merely  a  true  House 
of  Commons,  one  branch  of  a  true  Parliament,  but  a  full 
and  complete  government  for  "  the  Commonwealth  of 
England,"  as  the  state  was  now  described.  It  abolished 
the  House  of  Lords  as  ''useless  and  dangerous,"  and 
"  the  office  of  a  king  "  as  "  unnecessary,  burdensome,  and 
dangerous  ; "  and  so  it  boldly  took  all  the  functions  of 
government  into  its  own  hands.  It  did  so  by  no  power 
in  itself,  but  as  the  instrument  and  agent  of  an  army, 
that  had  come  to  be  likewise  a  political  party  and  a 
strange  confederation  of  religious  sects. 

For  executive  action  in  the  government,  a  Council  of 
State  was  appointed,  which  became  scarcely  more  than 
TheCoun-  ^  parliamentary  committee,  since  thirty-one  of 
cii  of  state,  'i-g  forty-one  members  were  taken  from  the 
membership  of  the  House.  John  Milton,  the  poet,  was 
appointed  Latin  secretary  to  the  Council,  and  conducted 
its  correspondence  with  foreign  states. 

248.  The  Late  King's  Son.  Immediately  on  receiv- 
ing news  of  the  execution  of  his  father,  the  late  king's 


i649]  COMMONWEALTH    AND    PROTECTORATE.      425 

son,  Charles,  then  in  Holland,  assumed  the  royal  title, 
and  set  forth  his  claim  to  the  throne.  At  Edinburgh, 
he  was  proclaimed  king  at  once,  on  condition  that  he 
should  *' give  satisfaction  concerning  religion,"  accord- 
ing to  the  covenants.  In  Ireland,  he  was  offered  the 
support  of  a  combination  that  had  been  formed  between 
Catholics  and  Protestant  royalists  ;  but  they,  too,  imposed 
conditions,  which  called  for  an  independent  Parliament 
and  a  free  Roman  church.  Between  the  two  proposals, 
Charles,  an  indolent  and  frivolous  youth,  who  dreaded 
the  grim  Covenanters,  decided  to  accept  the  Irish  offers 
first,  and  preparations  for  making  Ireland  a  base  of  opera- 
tions against  England  were  soon  under  way. 

249.  Cromwell  in  Ireland.  The  royalist  plans  in 
Ireland  were  known  early  to  the  heads  of  the  English 
Commonwealth,  and  Cromwell  was  sent  to  deal  with 
them.  He  reached  Dublin  in  the  middle  of  August 
and  began  a  horribly  merciless  campaign.  Moving  first 
against  Drogheda,  or  Tredah,  twenty-three  miles  from 
Dublin,  a  place  defended  by  about  3000  picked  offi- 
cers and  men,  he  took  it  by  storm  and  slaughtered  the 
garrison  to  the  last  man.  At  Wexford  there  was  an- 
other general  massacre  after  the  storming  of  the  town. 
Cromwell's  excuse  for  these  atrocities  was  that  they 
would  "tend  to  prevent  the  effusion  of  blood  for  the 
future "  by  stopping  resistance  ;  but  nothing  that  he 
gained  in  that  way  could  compensate  for  the  undying 
passion  of  hatred  that  he  kindled  in  the  Irish  heart.  As 
he  began  the  war  he  continued  it,  with  a  cruelty  that  can 
never  be  forgotten.  In  the  spring  of  1650,  danger  to 
England  from  Irish  royalism  was  so  far  ended  that 
Cromwell  could  return  home. 

250.  War  with  the  Scots.  Cromwell  was  needed  in 
England  to  defend  the  Commonwealth  against  the  Scots. 


426 


THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION. 


[1650 


They  had  brought  the  young  Charles  Stuart  to  their 
terms,  when  he  found  his  hopes  from  Ireland  cast  down. 
He  had  agreed  to  sign  the  Covenant,  to  become  a  Pres- 
byterian, to  join  the  Scots  in  forcing  Presbyterianism  on 
England  and  Ireland,  and  to  deal  harshly  with  Catholi- 
cism in  both.  He  was  playing  a  deceitful  game,  which 
the  Covenanters  appear  to  have  understood  quite  as  well 
as  his  friends. 

The  agreement  of  Charles  with  the  Covenanters  was 
practically  a  betrayal  of  Montrose.     He  had  sent  that 

bravest  of  his  friends'  into 
Scotland,  on  a  mission  of 
hostility  to  the  very  cove- 
nanting party  which  he  now 
embraced  as  his  own.  Mont- 
rose had  entered  the  High- 
lands in  the  early  part  of 
April  (1650),  to  attempt 
again  what  he  had  done  in 
1644-45,  but  had  met  with 
disappointment  and  defeat.  On  the  day  (May  i)  when 
Charles  was  signing  his  treaty  of  alliance  with  the  Cove- 
nanters, at  Breda,  in  the  Netherlands,  his  faithful  servant 
was  a  fugitive,  flying  from  their  soldiery,  in  the  Scottish 
hills.  On  the  i8th  of  May  the  fugitive  had 
of^Mont-  become  a  captive,  and  entered  Edinburgh,  tied 
hand  and  foot,  in  a  cart.  On  the  21st  he  was 
hanged.  Twelve  days  later,  Charles,  then  acquainted 
with  the  fate  of  Montrose,  set  sail  from  Holland  to  re- 
ceive a  crown  from  the  hands  that  had  put  his  loyal 
friend  to  death  ;  and  on  the  way  he  bound  himself  once 
more  to  the  Covenants  by  a  solemn  oath. 

The  chiefs  of  the  English  Commonwealth  did  not  wait 
for  the  Presbyterian  attack  from  the  north ;  they  fore- 


COMMONWEALTH    FLAG 


1651]     COMMONWEALTH    AND    PROTECTORATE.     427 

stalled  it.  Within  a  month  after  Cromwell's  return  from 
Ireland,  he  was  on  his  way  to  take  command  of  the  army 
already  assembled  on  the  Scottish  border  ;  within  another 
month  he  was  marshalling  it  in  the  suburbs  of  Edinburgh, 
offering  battle  to  the  Scots.  Manoeuvring  followed,  in 
which  he  was  outdone  by  the  Scottish  general,  David 
Leslie,  and  was  compelled  to  fall  back  to  Dunbar  for 
supplies.  Leslie  pursued,  with  a  force  twice  the  strength 
of  the  English,  and  the  latter,  for  a  time,  were  Battle  of 
dangerously  placed  ;  but  the  Scots,  by  a  fatal  ^""^^^• 
change  of  position,  offered  Cromwell  an  opportunity  that 
he  was  swift  to  improve.  A  sudden  charge  in  the  early 
morning  (September  3)  threw  them  into  confusion,  and 
drove  their  cavalry  in  flight  through  crowded  masses  of 
half-wakened  foot-soldiers,  producing  utter  panic  and  rout. 
The  city  of  Edinburgh  surrendered,  though  its  castle 
held  out  for  three  months.  Leslie  gathered  the  frag- 
ments of  his  wrecked  army  at  Stirling  ;  Charles  and  the 
government  were  at  Perth. 

The  grasp  of  the  Presbyterian  clergy  on  political  affairs 
in  Scotland  was  broken  by  the  defeat  at  Dunbar,  and  a 
party  rather  national  than  religious  was  formed  around 
Charles.     On  the  ist  of  January,  1651,  he  was 
formally  crowned  at  Scone.     "  With  no  scruples  ing  of 
to  hold  him  back,"  says  the  most  careful  his- 
torian of  the  period,  "  he  had  lied  his  way  into  the  com- 
manding position  which  was  now  his."  ^    It  was  a  position 
soon  lost. 

251.  Scottish  Invasion  of  England.  —  Battle  of 
Worcester.  Cromwell  was  disabled  by  illness  in  the 
spring  of  165 1,  and  it  was  not  until  July  that  movements 
against  the  Scotch  at  Stirling  were  seriously  begun.  By 
crossing  the  Forth  and  taking  Perth  he  cut  their  sources 

^  S.  R.  Gardiner,  Co))iinoniuealtJi  and  Protectoi'ate^  vol.  i.  ch.  xiv. 


428  THE    CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.  [1651 

of  supply,  which  forced  them  to  quit  Stirling  and  move 
south.  They  were  then  persuaded  by  Charles  to  push 
on  to  England,  where  thousands  of  royalists,  he  expected, 
would  rise  to  join  them  as  they  advanced.  Cromwell  had 
foreseen  the  undertaking,  and  his  measures  for  defeating 
it  were  well  prepared.  As  the  army  of  Charles  marched 
rapidly  down  the  western  side  of  the  island,  through  Car- 
lisle, Cromwell  followed  as  rapidly  by  the  eastern  route, 
gathering  forces  that  were  ready  in  place  for  him  on  the 
way,  and  when  the  Scots  reached  Worcester  he  was  in 
their  path,  with  nearly  twice  their  number  of  men,  and 
better  prepared  for  fight.  Few  royalists  had  joined  them, 
even  in  the  counties  that  had  been  strongest  for  the  king. 

On  the  3d  of  September  —  exactly  a  year  after  the 
battle  of  Dunbar  —  Cromwell  made  his  attack,  and  fin- 
ished, there  at  Worcester,  his  military  work.  He  had 
no  more  battles  to  fight.  The  Scottish  army  was  de- 
stroyed. Charles  escaped  and  was  a  hunted  fugitive  in 
The  royal  England  for  six  weeks,  concealed  by  royalists 
fugitive.  ^^^  passed  from  place  to  place,  disguised  as  a 
servant  or  a  farmer's  son,  with  a  stained  and  sometimes 
smutted  face  ;  hidden  once  in  the  foliage  of  an  oak  at 
Boscobel,  and  going  through  numberless  romantic  adven- 
tures, which  he  seems  to  have  enjoyed.  At  last,  he  was 
taken  by  a  fishing  vessel  to  the  French  coast. 

The  Scottish  invasion  and  its  tremendous  defeat  had 

roused  a  feeling  in   England  which  Cromwell  and  the 

more  enlightened  leaders  were  anxious  to  take  advantage 

of,  in  the  election  of  a  new  Parliament.     They 

Vrant  of  a 

newPariia-  used  their  influence  to  bring  about  a  dissolution 
of  "the  Rump  ;  "  but  that  usurping  body  could 
not  be  induced  to  give  way.  And  so  an  opportunity 
for  possibly  settling  the  Commonwealth  on  some  broader 
basis  of  popular  consent  was  lost. 


i65i]     COMMONWEALTH   AND    PROTECTORATE.     429 

252.  Scotland  and  Ireland.  The  strength  of  Scot- 
land was  broken  at  Worcester,  and  General  Monk,  whom 
Cromwell  left  in  the  north,  had  little  trouble  in  complet- 
ing a  practical  conquest  of  the  country.  Ireton  and 
Ludlow  were  employed  for  something  more  than  two 
years  in  finishing  the  subjugation  of  Ireland  after  Crom- 
well left  them.  Then  followed  what  has  been  called  the 
Cromwellian  Settlement  of  Ireland,  a  barbarous  measure, 
for  which  Cromwell  is  held  responsible  in  the  main.  It 
was  an  attempt  to  sweep  the  whole  population  of  Irish 
property  owners  from  three  fourths  of  the  island,  into 
the  one  district  of  Connaught,  taking  their  lands  and 
giving  them  smaller  allotments  in  the  wilder  western 
region,  on  which  to  live.  The  laboring  people  were  left 
behind,  for  the  service  of  the  new  settlers  (English  sol- 
diers and  other  colonists)  who  took  possession  of  the 
confiscated  lands.  All  other  royalist  and  Catholic  Irish, 
and  even  citizens  of  several  English-peopled  towns,  were 
ordered  to  remove  into  Connaught  before  May  i,  1654, 
on  pain  of  death.  The  monstrous  ejectment  could  not 
be  perfectly  carried  out  ;  but  enough  was  done  to  cause 
measureless  suffering  and  grief,  and  measureless  hate. 

253.  The  Maritime  Revival.  Half  a  century  of  domes- 
tic disturbance  had  deadened  the  spirit  of  maritime  enter- 
prise and  ambition  which  stirred  England  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan age.  Meantime  the  superiority  of  the  Dutch  had 
increased.  They  had  become  the  carriers  of  most  of  the 
commerce  of  the  world,  with  the  spice  trade,  the  herring 
fisheries,  the  whale  fishery  —  all  sources  of  immense 
wealth  —  in  their  hands.  But  now  English  energy  began 
again  to  make  itself  felt. 

One  of  the  parliamentary  generals,  Robert  Blake,  was 
sent  to  sea  to  learn  the  art  of  naval  war,  which  he  did 
with  remarkable  success.     Swarms  of  royalist  privateers 


430 


THE  CENTURY  OF  REVOLUTION. 


[1651-1652 


were  driven  off ;  Portugal  was  chastised  for  giving  them 
Admiral  shelter  and  aid  ;  the  English  flag  was  carried 
Blake.  proudly  into  the  Mediterranean ;  and  when 
Blake  left  those  waters  his  place  was  taken  by  Admiral 
Sir  William  Penn,  whose  son  became,  thirty  years  later, 
the  founder  of  a  great  American  state. 

254.  The  Navigation  Act.  Determined  now  to  re- 
cover their  own  carrying  trade,  at  all  costs  and  imme- 
diately, the  English  ex- 
pelled the  Dutch  from  it 
by  a  famous  Navigation 
Act,  passed  in  165 1. 
The  act  forbade  the  car- 
rying of  merchandise  to 
and  from   England   and 


in  other 
ships,  or 
countries 
imported 
It  accom- 
object    at 


ROBERT   BLAKE. 


her     colonies 
than    English 
ships    of   the 
from     which 
goods  came, 
plished    the 

which  it  was  aimed,  but 
it  did  so  at  heavy  cost. 
English  shipping  inter- 
ests were  forcibly  built  up  ;  but  the  process  required 
time,  and  other  interests  suffered  in  that  time.  Trade 
was  lost ;  many  industries  were  crippled ;  consumers 
paid  high  prices  ;  both  England  and  her  colonies  were 
troubled  by  the  ill-supply  of  many  wants.  In  the  end, 
however,  the  English  were  masters  of  a  greater  carrying 
trade  than  that  of  the  Dutch. 

255.  War  with  the  Dutch.  The  last  touch  to  many 
irritations  between  the  English  and  the  Dutch  was  given 
by  the  Navigation  Act,  and  war  came  to  an  outbreak  in 


i653]     COMMONWEALTH    AND    PROTECTORATE.     43 1 

the  summer  of  1652.  It  was  wholly  a  naval  war,  in  which 
I^kike  on  the  English  side  and  Tromp  and  De  Ruyter  on 
that  of  the  Dutch  were  the  heroes  of  long  renown.  From 
the  first  engagement  of  the  war,  the  laurels  were  taken 
by  Blake,  though  with  no  substantial  results.  In  Novem- 
ber, he  was  overpowered  off  Dungeness,  and  beaten,  by 
Tromp,  who  then  threatened  the  Thames,  took  cattle 
from  the  Sussex  coast,  and  swept  the  Channel  trium- 
phantly with  a  broom  at  the  head  of  his  mast.  In  the 
following  February,  Blake  had  his  revenge,  recovering 
the  mastery  of  the  Channel  from  Tromp  and  De  Ruyter, 
after  a  three  days'  fight.  A  two  days'  encounter  in  June 
went  again  in  his  favor  ;  but  a  wound  kept  Blake  out  of 
the  final  battle  of  the  war,  which  was  fought  in  the 
Texel,  on  the  last  day  of  July,  1653,  and  won  by  the 
English  soldier  Monk.  The  great  admiral,  Tromp,  fell 
in  the  fight,  and  his  countrymen  suffered  defeat.  In 
arranging  peace,  the  English  strove  hard  to  bring  about 
a  political  union  of  the  two  commonwealths  in  one  ;  but 
the  Hollanders  would  not  consent. 

256.  Cromweirs  Dissolution  of  the  Rump.  Neither 
Cromwell  nor  anybody  else  in  the  Commonwealth  gov- 
ernment was  willing  to  give  the  whole  English  people  a 
free  and  full  chance  to  elect  such  a  Parliament  as  they 
might  choose,  for  they  knew  that  the  enemies  of  the 
Commonwealth  outnumbered  its  friends  ;  but  those  who 
opposed  the  Rump  wished  to  put  in  place  of  that  worn- 
out  body  some  kind  of  a  "  new  representative "  that 
would  command  more  respect.  One  fanatical  faction, 
known  as  Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  claimed  that  govern- 
ment should  be  kept  in  the  hands  of  "godly  people"  of 
their  own  sects.  Cromwell  and  his  friends  desired  a 
broader  representation,  but  not  broad  enough  to  let  dan- 
gerous opponents  of  the  Commonwealth  in.     The  major- 


432 


THE  CENTURY  OF  REVOLUTION. 


[1653 


ity  in  the  Rump,  led  by  Sir  Henry  Vane,  wished  to  per- 
petuate their  own  membership,  and  to  appoint  elections 
to  fill  vacancies  only,  while  they,  the  sitting  members, 
might  admit  or  reject  the  newly  elected  as  they  saw  fit. 

The  question  at  issue  was  settled  in  a  rough  way  by 
Cromwell,  on  the  20th  of  April,  1653,  when  information 
came  to  him  that  the  House  was  about  to  pass  an  elec- 
tion bill  in  the  form  it  desired.  He  hurried  in  anger  to 
the  Hall,  followed  by  a  guard  of  soldiers,  and  broke  in 
on  the  proceedings  with  a  speech  which  grew  more  vio- 
lent as  he  went  on,  ending  with  the  exclamations,  "  We 
cromweU's  have  had  enough  of  this  !  I  will  put  an  end 
speech.  ^^  ^-^[s  I  It  is  not  fit  you  should  sit  here  any 
longer  !  "     He  then  called  in  his  soldiers  and  bade  them 


GREAT   SEAL    OF    THE    COMMONWEALTH,    SHOWING    THE    RUMP    PARLIAMENT. 

clear  the  House.  As  the  members  went  out  he  cried  to 
them  :  "  It  is  you  who  have  forced  me  to  this ;  for  I  have 
sought  the  Lord  night  and  day,  that  He  would  rather 
slay  me  than  put  me  upon  the  doing  of  this  work." 

This  violent  act  of  Cromwell's  is  not  easily  to  be 
judged,  for  the  reason  that  the  body  calling  itself  a  Par- 
liament   had   no  more    constitutional    right   to  act  as  a 


i653]     COMMONWEALTH    AND    PROTECTORATE.     433 


SIR    HENRY    VANE. 


Parliament  than  he  had  the  right  to  break  it  up.      Con- 
stitutionally, everything  was  in   chaos.      The  only  way 
in  which  the  nation  could  recover  a  lawful  government 
was  by  some  free   action  of 
its  people  at  large,  and  that, 
as  the  people  then  felt,  was 
certain    to  destroy   the    men 
of  the  Commonwealth  and  all 
their    work.       Circumstances 
had    carried     Cromwell    and 
Vane  and  their  associates  to 
a  situation  so  difficult  that  we 
may  hesitate  to  judge  what 
they  did. 

257.  The  Barebones  Par- 
liament. As  ''  Captain  Gen- 
eral and  Commander  -  in- 
Chief  "  of  the  forces  of  the 

Commonwealth,  Cromwell  now  assumed  executive  au- 
thority, acting  with  a  Council  of  State.  Soon  after- 
wards, letters  were  sent  out  to  the  Independent  or 
Congregational  churches  of  the  country,  asking  them  to 
recommend  persons  fit  to  be  members  of  a  "  New  Re- 
presentative." Partly  selecting  from  the  lists  thus  ob- 
tained; and  partly  choosing  otherwise,  the  Council  made 
up  an  assembly  of  140  persons,  five  taken  from  Scotland 
and  six  from  Ireland,  who  were  summoned,  without  other 
election,  to  meet  at  Whitehall,  on  the  4th  of  July,  to  act 
as  a  Parliament  for  the  three  countries,  now  assumed  to 
be  united  in  one.  It  was  known  as  the  Little  Parlia- 
ment ;  but  the  presence  of  one  member  who  bore  the 
strange  name  of  IVaise-God  Barebone,  or  Barbon,  led 
the  royalists  to  call  it  derisively  "  the  Barebones  Parlia- 
ment." 


434  THE   CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.      [1653-1654 

This  so-called  Parliament  was  filled  with  earnest  men ; 
but  the  majority  were  lacking  in  practical  knowledge,  and 
plunged  into  schemes  of  law  reform  and  church  arrange- 
Dissoiu-  nient  which  caused  great  alarm.  Its  career 
tion.  ^y^g  ended  before  the  year  closed.     The  minor- 

ity had  seized  a  moment  when  they  were  present  in  supe- 
rior numbers,  and  had  declared  the  House  dissolved. 

258.  The  Instrument  of  Grovernment.  —  The  Pro- 
tectorate. The  Barebones  Parliament  was  dissolved  on 
the  1 2th  of  December,  1653.  On  the  15th,  a  long  medi- 
tated constitutional  plan,  styled  the  Instrument  of  Gov- 
ernment, was  agreed  upon  between  Cromwell  and  his 
ofificers,  and,  according  to  its  provisions,  he  was  solemnly 
installed  the  next  day  as  Lord  Protector  of  the  Common- 
wealth of  England.  Many  had  urged  him,  it  seems,  to 
take  the  title  of  King,  but  he  refused.  His  authority  as 
Protector,  under  the  Instrument,  was  to  be  limited  by  a 
Parliament  and  a  Council,  each  largely  independent  in 
power. 

The  Instrument  provided  for  a  Parliament  to  be  elected 

by  persons  owning  property  to  the  value,  at  least,  of  ^200, 

then  equal  to  far  more  than  the  same  sum  at  the  present 

day.     At  no  time  were  Roman  Catholics  to  be  permitted 

to  vote,  and  for  the  first  three  elections  none 

Parliamen-  ,  ^  1      i       i       1  •  •      . 

tary  could  vote  who  had  taken  part  m  any  war  agamst 

the  Parliament.  This  last  exclusion  shut  out 
all  loyalists  and  all  those  Presbyterians  who  had  favored 
the  recent  attempt  of  Charles  II.  To  keep  control  still 
more  surely  of  the  make-up  of  Parliament,  the  Council 
was  made  judge  of  the  qualifications  of  members-elect. 

259.  The  Protector  and  his  First  Parliament.  The 
first  Parliament  elected  under  the  provisions  of  the  In- 
strument of  Government  did  not  meet  until  September, 
1654,  the  Protector  and  Council  being  authorized  mean- 


1654]     COMMONWEALTH    AND    PROTECTORATE.     435 

time  to  make  needed  ordinances  and  laws.  In  this  period 
they  ordered  the  organization  of  the  church  on  a  footing 
of  congregational  freedom,  excepting  that  the  use  of  the 
Prayer  Book  was  not  allowed.  The  Court  of  Chancery 
was  reformed  ;  the  union  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Ire- 
land in  one  commonwealth  was  decreed  ;  the  Dutch  war 
was  brought  to  a  close ;  treaties  of  commerce  and  alli- 
ance were  concluded  with  Portugal,  Sweden,  and  Den- 
mark ;  the  business  of  state  abroad  and  at  home  was 
managed  with  a  powerful  hand. 

Despite  the  precautions  used  to  secure  a  friendly  Par- 
liament, it  began  immediately  to  revise  the  Instrument 
of  Government,  aiming  at  an  enlargement  of  its  own 
powers.  The  Protector  promptly  interfered,  reminding 
members  that  they  had  pledged  themselves  when  elected 
not  to  alter  the  government,  and  requiring  them  to  re- 
peat that  pledge.  Those  who  refused  (about  Attempts 
one  fourth  of  the  whole)  were  arbitrarily  ex-  at  revision, 
pelled  from  their  seats.  Even  this  did  not  stop  the 
attempt  of  Parliament  to  amend  the  constitutional  In- 
strument;  and  in  January,  1655,  the  Protector  used  his 
power  to  put  an  end  to  its  work. 

This  is  the  critical  point  in  Cromwell's  political  career, 
—  the  point  at  which  his  statesmanship  came  to  a  final 
test.  If  any  possibility  existed  of  some  arrangement  that 
would  provide  a  government  for  England  to  take  the 
place  of  his  own  personal  rule,  without  violently  bringing 
the  old  state  of  things  back,  he  cast  it  away  when  he 
"  purged "  and  then  dissolved  the  Puritan  Parliament 
elected  in  1654.  There  may  have  been  no  such  possi- 
bility ;  but  nothing  shows  that  he  fairly  attempted  to 
bring  about  a  statesmanlike  study  of  the  situa-  cromweirs 
tion  by  all  parties  together.  Nor  does  anything  failure, 
show  that  he  had  the  kind  of  capacity  needed  to  inspire 


43^  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.  [1656 

and  guide  such  a  study,  by  political  instincts  and  insight 
of  his  own.  He  was  a  man  of  amazing  force  in  master- 
ing circumstances  as  they  came  upon  him,  and  in  com- 
manding an  active  obedience  from  men  ;  but  the  genius 
of  great  statesmanship,  which  forecalculates  and  antici- 
pates, and  which  exerts  influence  as  well  as  power,  is  not 
to  be  clearly  seen  in  Oliver  Cromwell,  extraordinary  man 
as  he  was. 

260.  The  Last  Years  of  Cromweirs  Domestic  Rule. 
A  more  openly  military  character  was  given  to  the  Protec- 
tor's government  within  six  months  after  Parliament  had 
been  dismissed.  Royalist  plots  gave  the  excuse  for  an 
organization  of  ten  military  districts,  each  commanded 
by  a  major-general,  with  arbitrary  powers.  One  of  the 
duties  of  the  generals  was  the  collection  of  a  tax  of  ten 
per  cent,  on  the  incomes  of  royalists,  which  tax  was  im- 
posed by  the  Protector  more  autocratically  than  anything 
ever  dared  by  an  English  king. 

A  second  Parliament  was  called  in  1656  ;  but,  even  with 
his  major-generals  to  manage  elections,  the  Protector 
found  it  necessary  to  shut  out  nearly  a  hundred  of  the 
members  sent  up,  before  it  became  a  manageable  House. 
Again  amendments  to  the  Instrument  of  Government 
were  discussed,  but  this  time  with  the  Protector's  con- 
TheHum-  scut.  They  were  submitted  to  him  in  a  docu- 
an/id-^^^^  ment  styled  The  Humble  Petition  and  Advice, 
vice.  which  boldly  urged  him  to  take  the  title  of  King. 

Strong  arguments  in  support  of  the  proposal  were  pressed ; 
and  Cromwell  might  reasonably  have  been  persuaded 
that  the  new  order  of  things  would  be  more  acceptable 
if  settled  into  the  old  monarchical  forms.  But  the  re- 
publicans of  the  army  were  enraged  by  the  suggestion, 
and  he  put  it  aside. 

The  title  of  the  Protector's  office  was  left  unchanged, 


1 


1658]     COMMONWEALTH   AND   PROTECTORATE.    437 

but  it  was  clothed  with  more  dignity  and  surrounded  with 
more  state.  He  was  empowered  to  appoint  his  successor, 
and  also  to  select  persons  for  the  making  up  of  a  second 
House  in  Parliament,  to  take  the  place  of  the  House  of 
Lords.      This   "Other    House,"  for  which  no 

The 

other  name  could  be  found,  never  ceased  to  be  "other 
an  object  of  scorn.    When  the  Parliament,  after 
adjourning  for  some  months,  met  a  second  time  in  Janu- 
ary, 1658,  the  members  excluded  from  the  first  meeting 
were  allowed  to  take  their  seats,  and  they  gave  so  much 
trouble  that  a  speedy  dissolution  was  the  result. 

261.  The  Protector's  Foreign  Wars.  In  foreign 
policy  it  was  Cromwell's  desire  to  do  what  Queen  Eliza- 
beth and  King  James  I.  had  each  been  solicited  to  do 
and  would  not,  —  namely,  to  put  England  at  the  head  of 
a  great  Protestant  league.  The  time  for  that  had  passed. 
With  the  ending  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  religion  ceased 
to  be  a  leading  motive  in  European  politics  and  war.  But 
in  Cromwell's  government  the  religious  influence  was 
still  alive. 

It  made  him  more  willing  for  war  with  Spain  than  with 
any  other  power,  and  was  mixed  with  the  English  desire 
for  a  better  footing  in  American  trade.     The  two  motives 
were   combined   in   an   abrupt   demand   on  the   Spanish 
court,  made  in    1654,  for  freedom  of  commerce  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  for  religious  freedom  to  English  sub- 
jects in  the  dominions  of  Spain,  both  of  which  demands 
were  refused.     A  fleet,  already  prepared,  under 
Penn  and  another  commander,  sailed  instantly  against 
for  the  Antilles,  struck  without  success  at  San     ^^^^' 
Domingo,  and  took  Jamaica,  which  has  been  an  English 
possession   from  that   day.     Then,  in  alliance  with  the 
French,  the  English  fought  Spain  in  the  Netherlands, 
and  took  the  port  of  Dunkirk  (June,  1658)  for  their  share 
of  the  conquests  made. 


438  THE   CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.  [1658 

But,  before  entering  the  alliance  with  France,  Crom- 
well required,  as  the  price  of  it,  that  a  horrible  persecu- 
tion of  Protestants  (the  Waldenses,  or  Vaudois),  in  the 
The  dominions  of   the   Duke  of    Savoy,  should  be 

Vaudois.  stopped.  One  of  the  grandest  of  Milton's 
sonnets,  "Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered  saints,"  was 
inspired  by  the  sufferings  of  the  Vaudois. 

When  Penn  w^ent  to  the  West  Indies,  Blake  entered 
the  Mediterranean  with  another  fleet  and  compelled  both 
In  the  Med-  ^^^  Dukc  of  Tuscany  and  the  pirates  of  Tunis 
iterranean.  ^^  pg^y  indemnity  for  wrongs  to  English  mer- 
chants and  ships.  The  English  flag  had  never  been  so 
vigorously  upheld  in  foreign  waters  before. 

262.  Oliver  Cromwell's  Death.  In  July,  1658,  the 
Protector  was  so  stricken  with  grief  over  the  fatal  illness 
of  his  favorite  daughter,  Elizabeth  Claypole,  that  he  gave 
no  heed  to  business  for  some  weeks.  Before  her  death, 
on  the  6th  of  August,  he  himself  had  sickened,  and  on 
the  3d  of  September,  the  anniversary  of  Dunbar  and 
Worcester,  he  died.  He  died,  as  most  surely  he  had 
lived,  with  absolute  sincerity  in  the  religious  beliefs  for 
which,  more  than  for  any  political  cause,  or  for  any  per- 
sonal aim,  he  had  labored  and  fought. 

Until  he  felt  the  touch  of  death,  Cromwell  seems  to 
have  decided  nothing  as  to  what  should  be  done  or  at- 
tempted for  the  government  of  England  after  he  laid  it 
down.  In  his  last  hours,  when  almost  speechless,  he  is 
thought  to  have  named  his  elder  son,  Richard,  to  be  Pro- 
The  sue-  tector  in  his  place ;  but  there  is  no  certainty 
cession.       ^^^^  q^q^  |-]-jjg  tardy  and  futile  determination 

had  been  reached  in  his  mind.  It  was  so  poor  an  ending 
to  his  work,  so  empty  a  conclusion,  that  one  cannot  feel 
willing  to  accept  it  for  the  best  that  statesmanship  wield- 
ing great  power  could  have  brought  about. 


i659]     COMMONWEALTH    AND    PROTECTORATE.     439 


263.  Richard  Cromwell  and  the  Army.  Richard 
Cromwell  was  an  amiable  man,  with  none  of  his  father's 
strength,  in  intellect  or  will.  His  government  was  ac- 
cepted quietly  for  a  few  months ;  but  when  a  Parliament 
had  been  elected  which  undertook  to  bring  the  army 
under  constraint,  the  latter  became  threatening  at  once. 
The  Protector  dissolved  the  Parliament  (April  22,  1659), 
in  obedience  to  military  demands,  and  abdicated  his  office 
in  the  following  month.  P'orty-two  members  of  the  old 
"  Rump  "  had  been  invited  by  the  soldiers  to  assemble 
and  take  civil  authority 

once  more  into  their 
hands.  From  May  until 
October  they  conducted 
the  government,  with 
an  arrogance  that  in- 
creased until  they,  too, 
quarrelled  with  the 
army  and  were  driven 
out  of  Westminster 
Hall.  Then,  for  two 
months,  there  was  an 
open  rule  of  the  sword, 
with  strifes  of  ambition 
among  the  officers,  and 

public  excitements  so  alarming  that  the  Rump  was  taken 
back. 

264.  The  Action  of  General  Monk.  Meantime,  the 
forces  in  Scotland,  under  General  Monk,  had  become  dis- 
gusted with  the  conduct  of  the  soldiery  at  London,  and 
were  willing  to  interfere.  Monk  was  a  soldier,  apparently 
indifferent  to  the  political  and  religious  questions  of  the 
time,  who  could  look  at  the  state  of  the  country  with  a 
calculating  eye ;  and  he  thought  it  ripe  for  action  that 


GEORGE    MOXK. 


440  THE   CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.  [1660 

would  give  him  leadership  in  a  settlement  of  affairs.  His 
men  were  ready  to  follow,  and,  on  the  first  of  January, 
1660,  he  led  them  across  the  border  into  England.  At 
York,  he  was  joined  by  Fairfax,  and  everywhere  there 
was  joyful  applause  as  he  went  on.  Lambert,  of  the 
London  army,  attempting  to  oppose  him,  was  deserted 
"by  the  men  he  led.  Entering  London  on  the  3d  of  Feb- 
ruary, Monk  listened  to  all  parties  and  deliberated,  until 
he  knew  that  the  meeting  of  a  free  and  full  Parliament 
was  what  the  nation  desired.  On  his  demand,  the  mem- 
bers ejected  by  "  Pride's  Purge,"  in  1648,  were  seated 
again  with  the  Rump,  to  revive  the  Long  Parliament, 
just  long  enough  to  authorize  writs  for  a  general  elec- 
tion ;  then  it  voted  its  own  dissolution,  after  a  nominal 
duration  of  twenty  years. 

In  the  new  Parliament,  the  Presbyterians  were  numer- 
ous, but  a  general  eagerness  to  restore  the  monarchy  and 
recover  the  old  order  in  the  country  prevailed.  The 
exiled  Charles  had  already  sent  over  from  Breda  a  De- 
claration, vaguely  promising  amnesty,  liberty  of  con- 
science, etc.,  so  far  as  Parliament  should  approve.  In 
reality,  he  had  promised  nothing  for  himself  ;  but,  with 
no  more  than  this  doubtful  pledge  from  him,  he 

The  . 

monarchy  was  invitcd  to  the  long  empty  throne.  On  the 
25th  of  May,  1660,  he  landed  at  Dover ;  on  the 
29th  he  entered  London  ;  and  the  greater  part  of  Eng- 
land, weary  of  strife,  resentful  of  military  and  religious 
dictation,  in  dread  of  universal  disorder,  rejoiced  madly 
because  it  had  a  king  again. 

265.  The  Puritans  and  their  Enemies.  The  extreme 
Puritans  who  ruled  England  in  the  period  of  the  Com- 
monwealth and  the  Protectorate  had  made  themselves 
hateful  to  the  great  body  of  the  people  by  their  stern 
notions   of  religious  duty,   more  than   by  their  political 


COMMONWEALTH    AND    PROTECTORATE.     44 1 


exercise  of  usurped  power.  The  life  of  this  world,  as 
they  looked  upon  it,  was  a  serious  time  of  preparation 
for  the  life  to  come,  and  its  ordinary  pleasures  were 
temptations,  for  the  most  part,  to  be  resolutely  put  aside. 
Their  consciences,  unfortunately,  required  more  than  the 
ruling  of  their  own  lives  by  this 
idea ;  they  believed  that  author- 
ity had  been  put  into  their  hands 
to  make  it  the  rule  of  life  for  all. 
They  strove,  accordingly,  with 
grim  determination,  to  suppress 
many  forms  of  popular  amuse- 
ment, some  of  which  were  mor- 
ally as  innocent  as  others  were 
not.  They  not  only  forbade 
bearbaiting,  which  was  brutal, 
horse  -  racing,  which  had  many 
evil  influences,  and  theatrical  per- 
formances, which  were  often,  in 
that  day,  immoral,  but  they  cut 
down  the  May-poles  on  English 
village  greens,  ordered  Christmas 

to  be  kept  as  a  fast  day,  and  interfered  with  sports  and 
festivities  of  almost  every  kind.     If  all  who  did 
these  things  had  been  as  sincere  as  those  were  ence  with 

Sl30I*tjS 

who  began  it,  there  might  have  been  less  to 
resent.  But  the  power  which  the  true  Puritans  acquired 
drew  hypocrites  into  their  ranks,  who  outdid  them  in 
pretended  religious  zeal,  and  who  undoubtedly  gave  occa- 
sion for  much  public  hatred  and  contempt.  Neverthe- 
less, the  profound  sincerity  that  was  in  Puritanism  at  the 
bottom  left  plain  effects  in  English  life  and  character 
that  have  lasted  and  are  to  be  seen  to  this  day. 

266.  Thought  and  Letters.    The  great  age  of  English 


PURITAN    DRESS. 


442 


THE  CENTURY  OF  REVOLUTION. 


literature,  which  ran  from  the  later  years  of  Elizabeth  to 
the  early  years  of  Charles  I.,  was  followed  by  a  time  of 
change,  rather  than  of  debasement  or  dearth.     The  pen 

of  Milton,  throughout 
the  Puritan  epoch,  kept 
poetry  upon  its  highest 
plane ;  and  though  verse 
of  a  great  quality  was 
written  by  no  other,  and 
though  no  poet  except 
Herrick  could  claim 
even  a  second  rank, 
there  were  equivalents 
in  the  rise  of  a  noble 
prose.  From  Milton 
himself  we  have  more 
prose  than  poetry  in 
these  years ;  while  Sir 
Thomas  Browne, 
Thomas  Fuller,  Jeremy  Taylor,  Richard  Baxter,  were 
proving  that  the  measured  rhythm  of  verse  is  not 
needed  for  splendid  eloquence  in  the  English  tongue. 
Hobbes  and  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  were  giving  new 
thoughts  to  philosophy ;  Bunyan  was  brooding  over 
dreams  from  which  the  "Pilgrim's  Progress"  was  after- 
wards wrought. 

A  scientific  curiosity  concerning  the  natural  world  was 
beginning  to  enter  many  minds,  and  men  who  interested 
themselves  in  physical  and  chemical  experi- 
ments were  holding  meetings  to  compare  and 
discuss  them,  at  London  and  Oxford,  from  which  meet- 
ings, presently,  the  great  Royal  Society  came  forth. 


JOHN    MILTON. 


Science. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      443 
TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

247.  The  Founding  of  the  Commonwealth. 
Topics. 

1.  Remnant  of  the  House  of  Commons  and  its  action. 

2.  Council  of  State  and  its  secretary. 

References.  —  Green,  464-466,  526,  527,  531,  543,  544,572,  573, 
601-605  5  Gardiner,  P.  R.,  88,  89,  96,  97,  140-142,  175,  193-196; 
Traill,  iv.  423-426;   Patison's  Life  of  Milton. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Previous  to  the  death  of  Charles, 
to  whom  was  the  Presbyterian  party  opposed.?  (2.)  Was  it  on 
good  terms  with  the  army?  (3.)  Did  the  army  have  a  majority 
among  the  people  ?  (4.)  On  what  point  only  could  the  two  par- 
ties unite?  (5.)  What  then  was  the  political  wisdom  of  remov- 
ing Charles? 

248.  The  Late  King's  Son. 
Topics. 

1.  Charles  II.  proclaimed  in  Scotland  and  Ireland. 

2,  His  choice  between  the  two. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  691. 

249.  Cromwell  in  Ireland. 
Topics. 

1.  The  storm  of  Drogheda  and  the  massacre  of  Wexford. 

2.  Judgment  of  Cromwell's  campaign. 

References.  —  Bright,  ii.  692,693;  Gardiner,  ii.  562,  563;  Green, 
574?  575  '1  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  ch.  viii. ;  Gardiner,  P.  R., 
156?  ^57  \  Guest,  468,  469;  Macaulay,  i.  too,  lor. 

250.  War  with  the  Scots. 
Topics. 

1.  Charles  signs  with  the  Covenanters  and  betrays  Montrose. 

2.  Cromwell  at  Edinburgh  and  the  battle  of  Dunbar. 

3.  Surrender  of   Edinburgh. 

4.  Charles  crowned  at  Scone. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  693-696. 

251.  Scottish  Invasion  of  England.  —  Battle  of 

Worcester. 
Topics. 

I.  Cromwell's  movements  and  Charles's  march  into  England. 


444     COMMONWEALTH    AND    PROTECTORATE. 

2.  Battle  of  Worcester  and  Charles's  flight. 

3.  Unsuccessful  attempt  to  dissolve  the  "  Rump." 
Referen'ce.  —  Bright,  ii.  696-698. 

252.  Scotland  and  Ireland. 
Topics. 

1.  Monk  in  the  North  and  Ireton  and  Ludlow  in  Ireland. 

2.  Cromwellian  settlement  of  Ireland. 

References.  —  Green,  589,  590:  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  145- 
147. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  race  antagonism  between  the 
settlers  from  England  and  the  original  Irish  ?  (2.)  Show  how  the 
Scottish  settlers  may  have  been  nearer  to  them  in  blood?  (3.) 
What  antagonism  was  there  between  the  Scots  and  the  Irish? 

253.  The  Maritime  Revival. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Dutch  and  their  carrying  trade. 

2.  Robert  Blake  and  Admiral  Sir  William  Penn. 
References.  — Bright,  ii.  700,  701  ;  Colby,  200-203. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  From  whom  had  the  Dutch  but  lately 

won  their  independence?  (2.)  In  what  way  would  Spain  send 
her  troops  to  overrun  Holland  ?  (3.)  How  did  this  tend  to  build  up 
the  Dutch  navy  ?  (4.)  Why  could  not  Spain  send  her  troops  over- 
land? (5.)  When  their  independence  was  won,  to  what  use  could 
the  Dutch  put  their  ships  ?  (6.)  Show  from  her  resources  why 
the  people  of  Holland  took  naturally  to  the  carrying  trade  ?  (7.) 
What  colony  had  Holland  founded  in  America  ?  (8.)  What  trade 
supported  it  in  great  part  ?  (9.)  What  is  her  richest  colony  to- 
day? (10.)  For  what  did  the  Spaniards  value  their  colonies? 
(11.)  For  what  did  the  Dutch  and  Enghsh  value  theirs? 

254.  The  Navigation  Act. 
Topics. 

1.  Its  intention  and  content. 

2.  Its  success  and  ill  effects. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  564,  565  ;  Bright,  ii.  698-701  ;  Gibbins, 
128,  168:  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  120-124;  Gardiner,  P.  R., 
162;  Traill,  iv.  272,  273,  454,  620,  621. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    (2UESTI0NS.     445 

255.  War  with  the  Dutch. 
Topics. 

1.  Outbreak  of  the  war. 

2.  Early  Dutch  success,  later  victories  of  Blake  and  Monk. 

3.  Reasons  for  England's  success. 
Reference. —  Green,  577-581- 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  Had  the  Dutch  ever  been  willing  to 
be  joined  with  England  ?  (2.)  What  had  been  their  reason  for 
desiring  it?  (3.)  How  did  they  feel  about  it  now.?  (4.)  What 
relationship  of  royal  families  made  the  English  unfriendly  toward 
the  Dutch  ?  (5.)  What  racial  kinship  is  there  between  the  Eng- 
lish and  the  Dutch  ?  (6.)  Are  the  two  races  likely  to  have  equally 
good  fighting  qualities?  (7.)  When  did  the  Dutch  settle  in  South 
Africa?  (8.)  What  other  people  have  mingled  with  them  there 
beside  the  English  ?  (9.)  Where  did  Cromwell  get  the  money  to 
pay  for  the  Dutch  war?  (Gardiner,  ii.  565.)  (10.)  Is  war  a  good 
way  to  settle  difficulties  ?  (11.)  Do  wars  seem  to  decrease  with 
the  advance  of  civilization?  (12.)  What  is  meant  by  interna- 
tional arbitration?  (11.)  Mention  some  occurrences  which  seem 
to  indicate  the  growing  strength  of  the  idea  of  arbitration.  (14.) 
What  claims  of  the  United  States  against  England  arising  from 
the  civil  war  were  settled  by  arbitration  ? 

256.  Croraweirs  Dissolution  of  the  Rump. 

Topics. 

1.  Objections  to  a  free  Parliament. 

2.  Designs  of  different  parties  and  Cromwell's  action. 

3.  Causes  which  led  to  this  action. 
Reference.  —  Colby,  199,  200. 

Research  Questions.  —  (1.)  When  was  this  Parliament  elected 
which  Cromwell  now  dissolved  ?  (2.)  What  good  work  had  it 
done?  (3.)  Why  had  Cromwell  no  constitutional  right  to  dis- 
solve it. 

257.  The  Barebones  Parliament. 

Topics. 

I. 'Cromwell  as  the  executive  of  the  nation. 

2.  Selection  of  a  "  New  Representative." 

3,  Nickname  and  membership  of  this  body. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii,  566-568. 


44^  COMMONWEALTH  AND  PROTECTORATE. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  When  were  the  Welsh  admitted  to 
Pariiament  ?  (2.)  Was  the  decree  against  Cathohcs  withdrawn 
yet?  (3.)  Of  what  religion  were  the  real  Irish?  Were  there 
then  any  representatives  of  the  real  Irish  admitted  to  Parlia- 
ment ? 

258.  Instrument  of  Government.  —  The  Protectorate. 

Topics. 

1.  Instrument  of  Government  and  Cromwell  Lord  Protector. 

2.  Provisions  of  the  Instrument. 

References.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  ch.  ii.;  Gardiner,  ii. 
568;  Bright,  ii.  704,  705;  Green,  585,  586;  Ransome,  164-166; 
Montague,  132,  133. 

259.  The  Protector  and  his  First  Parliament. 

Topics. 

1.  Ordinances  of  the  Protector  and  Council. 

2.  Immediate  action  of  the  new  Parliament. 

3.  Cromwell  purges  and  dissolves  the  new  Parliament. 

4.  Cromwell's  lack  of  true  statesmanship. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  187-191. 

260.  The  Last  Years  of  Cromwell's  Domestic  Rule. 

Topics. 

1.  The  ten  military  districts. 

2.  Second  Parliament,  its  humble  Petition  and  Advice. 

3.  Powers  conferred  on  the  Protector. 

4.  Second  session  of  this  Parliament  and  its  dissolution. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,   Oliver  Cromwell  ch.  xii. ;  Gardiner,  ii. 

572,  573;  Bright,  ii.710;   Green,  595;  Traill,  iv.  243. 
Research    Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  was   Cromwell  ready   to  ap- 
prove the  Petition  and  Advice  ?    (Bright,  ii.  710.)    (2.)  Was  Crom- 
well's  a   more,   or   a    less    personal    government    than    that   of 
Charles  ?     (3.)  Was  it  more  or  less  despotic  ? 

261.  The  Protector's  Foreign  Wars. 

Topics. 

1.  His  foreign  policy. 

2.  Cause  of  war  with  Spain  ;  Jamaica  and  Dunkirk. 

3.  The  Vaudois  persecution  and  Blake  in  the  Mediterranean. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.    447 

References. —  Gardiner,  ii.  571,  572;  liright,  ii.  708;  Green, 
592,  593'  596;  Harrison,  Olivier  Cromwell,  ch.  xiii. ;  Guest,  473- 
475;  Macaulay,  i.  107,  108;  Traill,  iv.  260-264. 

262.  Oliver  Cromwell's  Death. 

Topics. 

1.  Circumstances  of  his  death. 

2.  The  condition  of  affairs  at  Cromwell's  death. 
Reference.  —  Harrison,  Oliver  Cromwell,  ch.  xiv. 

263.  Richard  Cromwell  and  the  Army. 
Topics. 

1.  Character  of  Richard  Cromwell. 

2.  He  dissolves  Parliament  and  abdicates. 

3.  Rule  by  a  portion  of  the  Rump  and  by  the  sword. 
Reference — Bright,  ii.  716,  717. 

264.  The  Action  of  General  Monk. 

Topics. 

1.  Monk  takes  control. 

2.  The  long  Parliament  revived. 

3.  A  new  Parliament  restores  the  monarchy. 

4.  Declaration  of  Breda  and  joy  over  Charles's  return. 
References.  —Bright,  ii.  718-721  ;  Colby,  203-205. 

265.  The  Puritans  and  their  Enemies. 

Topics. 

1.  Attitude  of  extreme  Puritans  toward  amusements. 

2.  Intermixture  of  hypocrisy. 

References.  —  Macaulay,  i.  124-130  ;  Macaulay,  Essay  on  Milton, 
last  part. 

266.  Thought  and  Letters. 

Topics. 

1.  A  time  of  change   in  literature. 

2.  Milton,  the  greatest  poet. 

3.  Great  prose  writers. 

4.  Beginnings  of  science. 
Reference. —  Green,  600-616. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION. 

Stuart  Kings:  Charles  II.  —  James  II.     1660-1688. 

267.  Charles  II.  The  second  Charles  Stuart,  brought 
back  hke  a  conquering  hero  to  the  throne  which  his  father 
lost,  was  one  of  the  most  worthless  of  English  kings. 
He  had  all  the  vices  that  were  in  the  blood  of  his  race, 
and  he  added  worse  ones  that  were  particularly  his  own. 
He  was  shameless  in  the  profligacy  of  his  life,  and  sur- 
rounded himself  with  the  vilest  court  that  England  ever 
knew. 

A  work  of  vengeance  was  the  first  to  be  taken  up  by 
the  new  Parliament  and  the  restored  king.  Fourteen, 
Theregi-  ^^^  ^^^'  ^^  ^^^  prominent  Roundheads,  mostly 
cides.  u  regicides,"  as  the  judges  of  the  late  king  were 

called,  suffered  death.  The  bodies  of  Cromwell  and 
Ireton  were  dragged  from  their  tombs  in  Westminster 
Abbey  to  be  hanged  ;  those  of  Pym,  Blake,  and  others 
were  cast  into  pits  outside. 

268.  The  Vengeance  of  the  Church.  It  was  religion, 
more  than  politics,  that  sharpened  the  vengeful  temper 
of  the  royalists  when  they  recovered  power.  The  king, 
having  secretly  given  such  belief  as  he  had  to  the  Roman 
communion,  desired  toleration  for  the  Catholic  church  ; 
but  the  question  in  Parliament  was  between  the  Presby- 
terians, who  had  taken  substantial  possession  of  the 
established  church,  and  those  who  expected  to  drive 
them  out.     Cromwell  had  not  disturbed  the  Presbyterian 


i66o] 


RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION. 


449 


system,  beyond  relaxing  it  to  make  room  for  some  Bap- 
tist and  Independent  congregations,  as  well  as  for  a  con- 
siderable number  of  quiet  parsons  of  the  old  church,  who 
were  left  in  peace. 

For  some  months  the  Presbyterians  were  kept  in  good 
humor    by   talk    of 
a  reconstructed 

church,  in  which 
presbyters  and  syn- 
ods should  remain 
and  bishops  should 
be  brought  back  to 
preside.  But  when 
the  Presbyterian 
Parliament  had 

voted  a  liberal  reve- 
nue to  the  king,  and 
had  been  dissolved, 
every  pretence  of 
willingness  to  make 
'  a  religious  compro- 
mise was  dropped. 
The  king  was  not 
active  in  what  fol- 
lowed, but  simply  cast  off  his  promises,  and  allowed  his 
royalist  friends  to  have  their  way.  Their  leader  was  that 
Edward  Hyde,  friend  of  Falkland,  who  had  acted  with 
the  Puritans  in  1641-42,  until  the  conflict  came  TheEariof 
to  blows  (see  section  222).  He  had  been  the  Clarendon, 
chief  minister  of  Charles  I.  during  the  war,  and  had 
passed  into  the  service  of  Charles  II.,  who  made  him 
Earl  of  Clarendon  and  lord  chancellor,  and  trusted  him 
in  most  affairs. 

A  new  Parliament  was  elected  in  the  spring  of  1661, 


CHARLES    II. 


450  THE    CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.      [1661-1664 

while  enthusiastic  loyalty  burned  everywhere,  and  nine 
tenths  of  the  Commons  chosen  were  ardent  Cavaliers. 
They  began  by  ordering  the  "  Solemn  League  and  Cove- 
nant "  (see  section  231)  to  be  burned  by  the  common 
hangman.    Then  they  drove  the  Presbyterians  from  their 

political  strongholds,  in  the  towns,  by  passing 
poration      a  Corporation  Act,  which  practically  excluded 

the  members  of  that  communion  from  office  in 
municipal  corporations,  where  the  election  of  town  repre- 
sentatives in  Parliament  was  generally  controlled  (see 
section  no).  The  next  blow  struck  was  in  an  Act  of 
Uniformity,  passed  in  the  spring  of  1662,  which  expelled, 
from  churches,  schools,  and  universities,  every  minister 

and   teacher  who    failed   to   declare,    within   a 

TheNon-  .  ...  ^    .  ,  , 

conform-  givcu  time,  his  *'  unteigncd  assent  and  con- 
sent  "  to  everything  in  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer.  No  less  than  2000  Nonconformists,  as  they 
were  called,  left  their  pulpits  and  chairs  on  the  appointed 
day. 

Expecting  that  the  Nonconformists  would  be  driven 
by  these  persecutions  to  support  him,  the  king  now 
claimed  that  he  had  authority  to  relax  the  intolerant 
The  king's  ^^^s,  or  to  grant  exemptions  from  them,  and 
design.  j^g  intended  by  that  means  to  give  freedom  of 
worship  to  Catholics  and  Protestants  alike.  But  when 
his  intention  was  understood,  it  stirred  up  the  old  alarms 
of  English  Protestants  afresh. 

An  act  passed  in    1664  punished  attendance  at    any 

religious    meeting    of   more   than  five   persons,   held  in 

any  other   manner   than   as    practised    by  the 

The  Con-  ,,r-r-ii-i-  •  ^        ^ 

venticie       church  of  England,  with  imprisonment  or  trans- 
Act  and  the  ■  r        .  •  r  ^1  i-l 

Five-Mile     portation,  for  terms  varying  from  three  months 
^^^'  to  seven  years.     At  the  next  session  of  Parlia- 

ment a  still  worse  law  was  enacted,  permitting  no  Non- 


1664-1665]       RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION.         45 1 

conformist  minister  to  come  within  five  miles  of  a  corpo- 
rate town,  or  parish,  or  place  in  which  he  had  preached 
or  taught.  These  detestable  laws  were  cruelly  enforced. 
More  than  8000  Protestants  are  said  to  have  been  im- 
prisoned during  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  besides  Catho- 
lics in  great  numbers. 

269.  The  Cavalier  Parliament  and  the  King.  During 
several  sessions,  the  Cavalier  Parliament  seemed  as  much 
in  haste  to  destroy  the  checks  which  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment had  put  upon  the  king  as  it  was  to  reestablish  a 
despotic  church.  But  even  the  fanatical  loyalty  of  the 
Cavaliers  was  cooled  in  a  few  years  by  the  conduct  of 
Charles.  They  were  forced  to  see  what  he  was  ;  how 
incapable  of  any  sense  of  duty,  or  honor,  or  shame.  To 
obtain  more  money  for  his  pleasures,  there  was  nothing 
that  he  would  not  do.  The  first  shock  of  awakening 
to  his  real  character  occurred  probably  on  the  ^^^e  of 
discovery,  in  1662,  that  he  had  sold  Dunkirk,  i^^^ikirk. 
Cromwell's  conquest  from  Spain,  to  Louis  XIV.  of 
France ;  but  that  was  the  least  ignoble  of  his  many  deal- 
ings with  the  French  king. 

270.  War  with  the  Dutch.  Clearer  light  was  thrown 
on  the  character  of  the  restored  Stuart  and  his  govern- 
ment by  their  management  of  a  war  with  the  Dutch, 
which  was  reopened  in  1665.  The  causes  of  the  war 
were  mostly  such  as  arose  from  the  rivalry  of  the  two 
peoples  in  trade,  and  acts  of  hostility  were  begun,  on  the 
African  and  American  coasts,  a  full  year  before  war  was 
formally  declared.  One  of  the  first  of  these  acts  was 
the  seizure,  in  1664,  by  an  English  fleet,  of  the  Dutch 
colony  of  New  Netherlands  in  America,  which  the  king 
had  granted  in  advance  to  his  brother,  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  which  thenceforward  bore  the  name  of  New 
York. 


452  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.      [1665-1667 

Popular  feeling  ran  strongly  in  favor  of  the  war,  and 
Parliament  voted  an  unexampled  grant  of  money  to  carry 
it  on.  But  Charles  made  free  use  of  the  war  fund  for  his 
minions  and  himself.  At  the  outset,  the  navy  was  in 
good  condition,  and  of  course  it  fought  well.  It  was 
what  Cromwell  and  Blake  had  made  it,  in  superior  ships 
and  armament,  and  in  prestige.  In  two  out  of  three 
tremendous  battles  fought  during  1665  and  1666  it  had 
the  honors  of  victory,  without  much  fruit.  Between 
those  encounters,  a  third  took  place,  so  obstinate  that 
the  fighting  was  kept  up  for  three  days,  and  both  fleets 
TheEng-  were  half  destroyed.  But  the  English  navy 
iishnavy.  j^^^  reached  the  end  of  its  strength  at  the  be- 
ginning of  1667.  The  money  that  should  have  repaired 
its  losses  and  kept  it  properly  equipped  had  been  wasted 
by  the  king,  or  stolen  by  official  thieves.  De  Ruyter 
was  able,  in  that  year,  to  sail  boldly  up  the  Thames  to 
Gravesend  ;  to  burn  three  ships  of  war  in  the  Medway, 
and  to  keep  London  in  blockade  for  some  days.  The 
war  ended  while  the  nation  was  writhing  under  this  dis- 
grace ;  but  England  came  out  of  it  with  no  less  a  gain 
than  the  great  province  of  New  York. 

The  ''  besotted  loyalty,"  as  Mr.  Hallam  describes  it,  of 

the  first  years  of  the  Restoration  had  been   effectually 

killed.     Even  the  Cavalier  Parliament  had  become  ready 

to    put    restraints    on  the  king,   and   began  to 

Account-  .       . 

ingde-        demand  accounts  ot  his  expenditure,  appointing 

manded.  .      .  .  ,  ,  , 

commissioners  to  examine  them  and  make  re- 
ports. The  proceedings  then  taken  established  the  prac- 
tice in  Parliament  of  making  definite  appropriations  of 
money  for  purposes  distinctly  set  forth,  and  holding  the 
crown  to  them  by  strict  accounts. 

Clarendon,  the  lord  chancellor,  fell  a  victim  to  the 
angry  discontent  of  the  time.     He  had  been  very  useful 


1665-1667]       RESTORATION   AND    REVOLUTION.        453 

to  the  king,  and  his  daughter,  Anne  Hyde,  was  married 
to  the  king's  brother,  James,  Duke  of  York;  Fan  of 
but  neither  king  nor  duke  stood  by  him  when  Clarendon. 
he  was  assailed.  When  the  Commons  impeached  him, 
in  1667,  he  was  coldly  advised  by  Charles  to  fly,  and  did 
so,  becoming  an  exile  in  France  for  the  remainder  of 
his  life,  and  finishing  there  a  history  of  the  civil  war, 
which  gives  him  his  best  title  to  fame. 

271.  The  Plague  and  the  Great  Fire.  In  the  midst 
of  the  Dutch  war,  London  was  twice  afflicted  in  a  most 
terrifying  way.  A  visitation  of  plague  in  1665  exceeded 
in  horror  the  worst  that  had  been  known  since  the  awful 
"  black  death  "  of  three  centuries  before.  In  the  next  year 
the  city  (then  containing  about  half  a  million  people)  was 
half  destroyed  by  one  of  the  most  appalling  conflagrations 
in  history.  Calamitous  as  the  fire  seemed,  it  proved  to 
be  the  greatest  of  blessings  in  the  end  ;  for  it  burned 
out  the  filthy  breeding-places  of  plague,  which  never 
appeared  seriously  in  London  again,  and  the  city  when 
rebuilt  was  vastly  improved. 

272.  The  Cabal.  On  the  fall  of  Clarendon,  the  direc- 
tion of  public  affairs  fell  mostly  under  the  control  of  five 
men,  who  were  called  The  Cabal,  because  that  word  hap- 
pened to  be  formed  by  the  initials  of  their  names  :  Clif- 
ford, Arlington,  Buckingham,  Ashley  (better  known  by 
his  later  title,  as  Earl  of  Shaftesbury),  and  Lauderdale. 
They  formed  an  inner  section  of  the  larger  body  of  royal 
counsellors  called  the  Privy  Council,  and  their  so-called 
Cabal  is  considered  to  have  been  the  first  shaping  of  the 
English  Cabinet  of  succeeding  times. 

273.  The  Triple  Alliance.  The  first  fruit  of  the 
change  in  government  was  a  change  of  policy  with  re- 
ference to  France.  This  was  forced  by  a  public  feel- 
ing, shown  strongly  in  Parliament,  of  alarm  at  the  rising 


454  THE   CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.       [1667-1672 

power  and  threatening  ambition  of  Louis  XIV.  of  France. 
The  French  king  was  attempting  to  lay  hands  on  the 
Spanish  Netherlands,  evidently  meaning,  when  they  were 
subdued,  to  attack  the  Dutch.  The  Dutch  claimed  Eng- 
lish support  against  him,  and  public  opinion  compelled 
Charles  to  yield  it,  against  his  will.  A  Triple  Alliance, 
between  England,  Holland,  and  Sweden,  was  arranged 
in  1668,  which  warned  Louis  XIV.  away  from  the  con- 
quests he  had  planned. 

274.  Charles  as  a  Hireling  of  Louis.  The  king  now 
renewed  his  efforts  to  give  toleration  to  Catholics  and 
Protestant  Nonconformists ;  but  he  was  resisted  with 
greater  bitterness  than  before.  Angered  and  mortified 
by  the  defeat,  and  longing  to  be  absolute,  like  the  King  of 
France,  he  sold  himself  to  a  disgraceful  vassalage  under 
Louis  XIV.,  for  French  money  and  French  swords,  to 
Treaty  of     ^c  uscd  in  a  ncw  attack  on  English  liberty  and 

/  Dover.  |^^y^  jj^  ^  sccrct  treaty,  signed  at  Dover,  in 
June,  1670,  he  agreed  to  betray  his  Dutch  allies,  to  assist 
in  their  subjugation  by  Louis,  and  to  make  a  public  pro- 
fession of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion,  —  an  act  which 
was  certain  to  produce  in  England  a  religious  civil  war. 
In  return,  he  was  to  receive  a  large  yearly  payment  of 
money,  and  6000  French  troops  for  use  in  England  to 
crush  the  expected  revolt.  Of  this  treaty,  nothing  was 
known  to  the  Protestant  counsellors  of  Charles,  but  they 
were  tricked  by  a  sham,  treaty,  concluded  at  the  same 
time,  in  which  no  mention  of  religion  was  made. 

275.  The  Declaration  of  Indulgence.  The  attack  on 
the  Dutch  was  opened  treacherously,  without  warning, 
in  the  spring  of  1672.  At  the  same  time,  Charles  made 
the  first  move  in  his  own  plans,  by  reasserting  his  author- 
ity to  suspend  the  penal  religious  laws,  and  issuing  a 
Declaration  of  Indulgence  to  that  effect.     For  Protestant 


1672-1673]       RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION.        455 

Nonconformists,  licensed  places  of  public  worship  were 
to  be  allowed  ;  while  Catholics  were  to  have  only  free- 
dom of  worship  in  their  own  homes.  Even  this  moderate 
measure  of  indulgence  roused  more  passion  than  Charles 
had  the  firmness  to  resist. 

By  defrauding  public  creditors,  he  was  able  to  post- 
pone a  meeting  of  Parliament  until  the  next  spring, 
and  his  Declaration  was  in  effect  throughout  that  year. 
When  Parliament  met,  the  king  faced  it  with  an  air  of 
great  resolution,  saying,  ''  I  am  resolved  to  stick  to  my 
Declaration  ;  "  but  before  a  month  was  gone  his  resolu- 
tion had  oozed  away.  Unfortunately  he  had  stirred  up 
fears  and  passions  which  his  surrender  was  not  sufficient 
to  allay. 

276.  The  Test  Act.  That  the  king  was  in  secret  a 
Roman  Catholic  had  come  to  be  suspected,  but  not 
known.  There  was  no  concealment,  however,  of  the 
fact  that  his  brother  James,  Duke  of  York,  had  entered 
the  Roman  church  ;  and  others  near  the  king  were  be- 
lieved to  be  attached  to  the  ancient  faith.  Parliament 
now  determined  to  drive  all  Catholics  from  ofhce,  by 
requiring  every  official  to  declare  his  disbelief  in  the  fun- 
damental doctrine  of  the  Roman  church  (the  doctrine 
of  Transubstantiation),  relative  to  the  real  presence  of 
the  body  of  Christ  in  the  elements  of  the  Lord's  Supper. 
The  intended  effect  was  produced  so  far  that  the  Duke 
of  York,  Clifford,  and  others  resigned. 

277.  The  Country  Party.  The  secret  of  the  infamous 
Treaty  of  Dover  began  to  leak  out,  just  enough  to  alarm 
the  circles  through  which  it  spread.  Shaftesbury  had 
got  an  inkling  of  it,  and  was  furious  at  the  trick  of  the 
sham  treaty  by  which  he  had  been  deceived.  Charles 
tried  by  bold  denials  to  cover  his  secret  again,  solemnly 
assuring  Parliament,  in  a  speech,  that  the  sham  treaty 


45^  THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.     [1673-1678 

was  the  only  treaty  he  had  made  with  France  ;  but  there 
was  no  longer  any  trust  in  his  word.  A  party,  known 
as  the  Country  Party,  which  had  been  growing  slowly 
in  Parliament  for  some  years,  now  rapidly  increased.  It 
inclined  to  Puritanism,  regarded  the  Roman  church  with 
extreme  fear,  was  in  dread  of  France,  and  detested  the 
scandalous  court.  Shaftesbury,  who  was  the  most  dex- 
terous politician  of  his  age,  went  into  alliance  with  this 
party,  and  became  a  popular  agitator  of  fierce  opposi- 
tion to  the  king.  The  leaders  of  the  more  strictly 
named  Country  Party  were  William  Lord  Russell  and 
Algernon  Sidney,  the  latter  an  avowed  republican  in 
belief. 

Shaftesbury's  agitations  and  the  pressure  of  the  Coun- 
try Party  forced  the  king  to  make  peace  with  Holland 
Peace  with  i^  February,  1674,  and  there  began  then  to  be 
Houand.  demands  for  war  with  France.  At  the  same 
time,  those  who  distrusted  the  king  were  divided  in  feel- 
ing, between  their  wish  to  carry  England  into  the  alli- 
ance against  Louis  XIV.  and  their  fear  as  to  the  use 
that  Charles  might  make,  at  home,  of  any  army  which 
they  allowed  him  to  raise.  The  French  king's  money 
was  spent  freely  in  England  to  keep  the  kingdom  con- 
fused. Under  agreement  to  prorogue  Parliament  when- 
ever it  threatened  war,  Charles  received  an  annual  pen- 
sion, and  enormous  extra  payments  repeatedly,  without 
shame ;  while  even  the  Country  Party  was  more  or  less 
corrupted  by  Louis's  gold. 

278.  The  So-called  "  Popish  Plot."  The  vague  fears 
that  troubled  the  country  were  raised  to  a  feverish  heat, 
in  1678,  by  stories  of  a  pretended  "popish  plot,"  started 
by  a  wretch  named  Titus  Oates.  Gates,  a  disreputa- 
ble clergyman,  Protestant  at  first,  but  finally  Catholic, 
claimed  to  have  acquired  knowledge,  in  certain  foreign 


167S-1680]    RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION. 


457 


Jesuit  houses,  of  a  great  plot  on  foot  to  murder  the  king, 
to  set  his  brother  James,  Duke  of  York,  on   the  throne, 
with  the  help  of  an  army  from  France,  and  to  suppress 
Protestantism   in  England  by  force.      Shaftesbury,  arch- 
agitator   that  he  was,   made    the  most   of  the  T-^^g 
excitement  produced.     Oates  was  the  hero  of  ^^*^^- 
the  hour,  and  other  scoundrels  of  like  kind  made  haste 
to  join  him  with  fresh   lies,  in  order  to  get  their  share 
of     so    profitable 
a  fame.     Nobody 
dared     to     doubt 
that  England  was 
in     deadly    peril, 
from    a     gigantic 
conspiracy  against 
Protestantism  and 
the     constitution, 
which  nothing  but 
the  whole  energy 
of     the     country 
could  defeat.  Two 
thousand  suspect- 
ed Catholics  were 
imprisoned ;  every 
Catholic    was   or- 
dered to  quit  Lon- 
don, and  the  train-bands  were  called  out.     Then  began 
a  series  of  murderous  trials,  in  which  judges  and  juries 
abandoned  themselves  to  the  panic  of  the  hour.     Before 
the  madness  spent  itself,  near  the  end  of  1680,  seven 
priests  and  ten  laymen  had  been  put  to  death  on  the 
perjured  testimony  of  Oates  and  his  fellows  ;  many  had 
languished  long  in  prison,  not  a  few  had  died. 

279.  The  Exclusion  Bill.     The  king  having  no  law- 


llfriifiiffi^w^^^ 


TITUS    OATES    IN    THE    PILLORY. 


458  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.      [1679-1681 

fill  children,  his  brother  James,  Duke  of  York,  now 
known  to  be  a  zealous  Catholic,  stood  next  in  succes- 
sion to  the  throne.  His  exclusion  by  law  was  fiercely 
demanded,  and  three  Parliaments  were  elected,  in  1679, 
1680,  and  168 1,  with  that  purpose  in  the  minds  of  the 
Commons  ;  but  each  in  turn  was  dissolved  by  the  king 
to  prevent  the  passing  of  the  Exclusion  Bill. 

Those  who  desired  the  exclusion  of  James  were  not 
agreed  as  to  the  successor  to  be  named.  By  his  first 
wife,  Anne  Hyde,  James  had  two  daughters,  Mary  (mar- 
ried to  the  Prince  of  Orange)  and  Anne,  both  Protest- 
ants ;  and  these  would  be  the  next  heirs,  after  himself, 
unless  his  second  wife,  who  was  a  Catholic  princess  from 
Italy,  should  give  him  a  son.  Many  Protestants,  urged 
on  by  Shaftesbury,  contended  that  the  latter  possibility 
should  be  guarded  against  by  excluding  the  whole  family 
of  the  Duke  of  York.  They  wished  to  give  the  crown 
to  a  son  of  King  Charles,  who  was  not  of  lawful  birth, 
but  who  might,  they  thought,  by  act  of  Parlia- 
Dukeof  ment,  be  made  the  legitimate  heir.  This  son, 
whom  Charles  had  raised  to  high  rank,  as  Duke 
of  Monmouth,  was  generally  well  liked,  but  sober-minded 
people  could  see  that  an  attempt  to  place  him  on  the 
throne  was  certain  to  produce  civil  war. 

280.  The  Reaction.  The  dread  of  a  new  civil  war 
which  then  arose  in  men's  minds,  while  the  frenzied  be- 
lief in  a  "popish  plot"  was  dying  out,  caused  one  of 
those  quick  and  extreme  reactions  that  are  sure  to  follow 
false  excitements  of  any  kind.  Opinion  was  rallied  to 
the  side  of  the  king,  against  the  promoters  of  the  Exclu- 
sion 1^11,  and  especially  against  the  Monmouth  faction, 
Whigs  and  ^^i^^  Shaftcsbury  at  its  head.  The  king's  party 
Tones.  j^Q^  began  to  be  called  "  Tories  "  and  the  ex- 
clusionists   "Whigs,"  —  meaningless   party   names    that 


1681-1683]    RESTORATION   AND   REVOLUTION.  459 

were  kept  in  English  politics  for  a  hundred  and  fifty 
years.  Whig  was  an  epithet  borrowed  from  the  Scotch, 
who  had  applied  it  to  certain  fighting  Covenanters  in  the 
west.  The  term  Tory  came  from  Ireland,  where  it  signi- 
fied a  wretched  outlaw  of  the  bogs. 

Soon  the  Tories  were  all-powerful  ;  the  Whig  party 
was  broken  by  the  king,  who  showed  energy  and  ability 
for  the  first  time  in  his  reign.  Shaftesbury  had  had  the 
city  of  London  at  his  back,  with  its  magistracies  and  its 
juries  ;  but  court  influence  won  the  mayor  and  the  sheriff, 
packed  the  grand  jury,  and  so  shattered  his  party  that 
he  fled  from  a  charsre  of  high  treason  (October, 

TT    11        n  1  ,  11  Death  of 

1683),  to   Holland,   where,  three  months  later,   Shaftes- 

bury. 

he  died.  Then,  by  high-handed  proceedings  in 
the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  the  charter  of  the  city  was 
declared  to  have  been  forfeited ;  its  political  rights  were 
annulled,  and  all  its  municipal  offices  were  placed  under 
royal  control.  Against  many  other  cities  the  same  action 
was  taken,  and,  those  cities  being  the  centres  of  Whig 
opinion,  the  Whig  party  seemed  to  be  hopelessly  bound 
hand  and  foot. 

281.  Russell,  Sidney,  and  the  Rye  House  Plot.  The 
oppressive  conduct  of  the  king  and  the  Tories  gave  rise 
to  two  projects  of  resistance  among  the  Whigs,  one  by 
personal  violence  to  the  king,  and  one  by  a  national  ris- 
ino-  to  restrain  his  hand.  Some  reckless  followers  of 
Shaftesbury  engaged  in  the  former,  which  was  a  plan 
to  seize  and  perhaps  murder  the  king  and  the  Duke  of 
York,  as  they  passed  a  place  called  Rye  House,  on  their 
way  to  Newmarket  from  London.  When  the  two  plots 
came  to  light,  they  were  treated  falsely  as  one,  in  order 
to  make  a  blacker  case  against  the  leaders  of  the  Whigs. 
Along  with  the  worse  plotters,  Russell  and  Sidney  were 
tried,  condemned,  and  put  to  death.    Against  Sidney  there 


46o  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.     [1660-1679 

was  almost  nothing  proved,  except  his  beUef  in  repubh- 
can  government  and  in  the  right  of  the  people  to  depose 
an  unworthy  king.  That  Russell  had  even  sanctioned 
the  larger  project  was  unproved. 

282.  The  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  Before  the  Whig 
party  fell,  it  had  established  one  of  the  most  important 
guarantees  of  personal  liberty  that  exist  in  English  law, 
by  the  enactment  of  the  famous  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  in 
the  Parliament  of  1679.  ^^  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^^  principle  of  the 
English  common  law  that  untried  prisoners  must  be 
brought  on  demand  before  a  judge,  for  investigation  of 
the  grounds  on  which  they  were  held  ;  but  there  were 
modes  of  evading  or  escaping  the  law,  by  conveying  such 
prisoners  out  of  reach,  and  by  otherwise  hindering  the 
execution  of  the  judge's  writ.  The  act  of  1679,  which 
became  the  most  cherished  in  the  statute  book,  was  a 
more  thorough  measure  for  enforcing  the  law. 

283.  The  State  of  Scotland.  The  state  of  Scotland 
was  worse  than  that  of  England,  and  had  been  so  through- 
out the  reign  of  Charles.  Cromwell's  conquest  appeared 
to  have  broken  the  old  spirit  of  the  nation  for  a  time, 
and,  in  its  joy  at  being  delivered  by  the  Restoration,  it 
had  permitted  the  king  to  do  nearly  what  he  willed.  Its 
feeble  Parliament  abolished  the  Presbyterian  system  and 
established  episcopacy  at  his  command,  with  a  certain 
toleration  in  worship,  called  the  Indulgence,  allowed  to 
Presbyterian  ministers  who  accepted  it  in  due  form. 
The  stricter  Covenanters  ^  refused  to  listen  to  these  "  in- 
dulged "  clergymen,  and  resorted  to  secret  meetings  in 
the  mountains  and  on  the  wild  moors,  to  hear  preachers 

^  The  name  "  Covenanters,"  given  first  to  the  signers  of  the 
National  Covenant  in  1638  (see  section  219),  was  afterwards  ap- 
pHed  to  all  who  adhered  to  the  old  Kirk  of  Scotland  —  the  Pres- 
byterian church. 


1669-16S5]    RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION.  46 1 

of  their  own,  who  "would  not  bow  the  knee  to  Baal." 
For  years  there  was  no  movement  of  rebellion  among 
them,  beyond  the  attempt  to  assemble  in  retired  places 
for  forbidden  services  of  preaching  and  prayer.  Yet 
they  were  hunted,  shot,  hanged,  imprisoned,  tortured, 
harried  by  wild  Highlanders,  like  deadly  enemies  of  the 
state. 

In  1669,  the  Earl  of  Lauderdale,  one  of  King  Charles's 
Cabal,  was  sent  as  royal  commissioner  to  Scotland,  and 
he  established  there  a  reign  of  corruption  and  cruelty 
that  would  have  shamed  a  Turkish  bashaw.  Toward 
the  end  of  his  rule  he  was  joined  in  the  persecution  of 
the  Covenanters  by  a  soldier  of  evil  fame,  John  Graham 
of  Claverhouse,  Viscount  Dundee.  It  was  then  ciaver- 
that  the  hunted  people  were  driven  into  posi-  ^o^se. 
tive  rebellion  by  their  maddening  wrongs.  In  May,  1679, 
Claverhouse  was  defeated  by  the  Covenanters  at  Drum- 
clog.  A  month  later  they  were  routed  by  Monmouth  at 
Bothwell  Bridge.  Soon  afterwards  the  direction  of  affairs 
in  Scotland  was  given  to  the  Duke  of  York,  who  contin- 
ued the  merciless  policy  that  Lauderdale  had  introduced. 

284.  Death  of  Charles  II.  —  Accession  of  James  II. 
The  practice  in  government  which  James  had  found  in 
Scotland  was  now  to  be  widened  on  a  greater  field  ;  for 
the  three  kingdoms  of  his  brother  were  about  to  be  put 
under  his  hand.  The  exclusionists  had  been  thwarted  ; 
nothing  stood  in  his  way  to  the  throne ;  and  when 
Charles  II.,  stricken  with  apoplexy,  died  suddenly  on  the 
6th  of  February,  1685,  James  II.  became  king. 

If  no  difference  of  religion  had  arisen  between  James 
and  his  subjects,  he  would  still  have  been,  probably,  as 
impossible  a  king  as  his  father,  the  first  Charles,   character 
He  had  the  same  despotic  temper,  with  even  of  James, 
more  doggedness  of  will  and  blindness  to  any  view  of 


462 


THE   CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION. 


[168: 


things  except  his  own.     ''I  will  make  no  concessions," 
was  his  declaration,  again  and  again. 

285.  The  Argyle  and  Monmouth  Rebellions.  A 
Parliament  elected  in  April  contained  only  forty  members 
of  the  House  of  Commons  whom  the  king  himself  would 

not,  he  declared,  have 
chosen.  Toryism  was 
at  its  height  when  the 
reign  began.  There  was 
nothing,  then,  at  this 
time  to  encourage  a 
movement  of  rebellion 
against  King  James  ; 
but  such  a  movement 
was  foolishly  under- 
taken by  some  of  the 
accused  Whigs  who  had 
fled  to  Holland  in  1683. 
The  Duke  of  Mon- 
mouth, one  of  the  refu- 
gees, was  persuaded  that 
he  had  a  claim  to  the  crown  which  the  greater  part  of 
the  English  people  approved  and  would  sustain.  The 
Duke  of  Argyle,  in  exile  from  Scotland,  was  equally  per- 
suaded that  the  Highlanders  of  his  clan  and  the  Cove- 
nanters of  the  Lowlands  would  rise  if  he  appeared 
among  them.  Two  expeditions  were  accordingly  planned, 
one  led  by  Argyle,  to  rouse  Scotland  ;  the  other  by  Mon- 
mouth, to  raise  England  in  revolt. 

Argyle  landed  in  May,  and  was  overtaken  by  disaster 
so  quickly  that  his  execution  at  Edinburgh  occurred  be- 
fore the  close  of  the  following  month.  The  failure  of 
Monmouth  was  equally  swift.  Landing  at  Lyme  Regis, 
in  Dorset,  on  the  nth  of  June,  he  advanced  into  Somer- 


JAMES    II. 


1685]  RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION.  463 

set  and  was  joined  by  some  5000  or  6000  farmers,  pea- 
sants, and  townspeople;  but  the  gentry  held  aloof.     His 
followers  were  entirely  untrained  and  poorly  armed,  and 
when  he  undertook,  on  the  6th   of  July,  to   surprise  a 
camp  of  regular  royal  troops  on  Sedgemoor,  by 
a  night  attack,  there  was  almost  no  chance  or  sedge- 
success.     The  repulse  and  rout  were  complete, 
the  pursuit  fierce,  the  butchery  of  helpless  fugitives  un- 
merciful ;  few  escaped.      Monmouth,   soon   captured,   in 
disguise,  was  executed  at  London  only  nine  days  after 
the  fight.     The  battle  of  Sedgemoor  was  the  last  ever 
fought  on  English  soil. 

286.  The  *'  Bloody  Assizes "  of  Judge  Jeffreys. 
Fugitives  from  the  battle  were  hunted  through  the  sur- 
rounding country  for  days  by  a  Colonel  Kirke  ;  but  Kirke 
and  his  ruffianly  soldiers  were  angels  of  mercy  compared 
with  the  judge  who  came  afterwards  on  the  scene,  to 
wreak  vengeance  in  colder  blood,  under  outraged  forms 
of  law,  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  implacable  king.  Be- 
fore he  came  to  the  throne,  James  had  discovered  this 
creature,  Jeffreys ;  had  used  influence  to  put  him  on  the 
bench  ;  had  since  made  him  chief  justice,  and  had  pro- 
mised him  the  office  of  lord  chancellor,  the  highest  judicial 
seat  in  the  realm.  In  September,  Jeffreys  was  sent  to 
conduct  the  trial  of  hundreds  of  wretched  men,  women, 
and  young  girls,  who  had  embroidered  colors  for  Mon- 
mouth, or  given  a  night's  shelter  to  fugitives  from  Sedge- 
moor, or  lent  countenance  to  the  late  rising  in  some  way, 
—  whether  trifling  or  serious  mattered  little  in  Jeffreys's 
measuring  of  guilt.  The  story  of  those  *'  Bloody  As- 
sizes," as  they  are  known  in  English  history,  cannot  be 
told  here.  Of  Jeffreys's  victims,  320  were  hanged  and 
840  sent  to  slavery  in  the  West  Indies,  which  was  a  fate 
dreaded  more  than  death.     The  only  appeals  that  won 


464  THE    CENTURY    OF    REVOLUTION.      [1685-1687 

mercy  from   either  the  king   or  his   judge   were   those 
backed  by  great  bribes. 

287.  Parliament  and  the  King.  While  gratifying  his 
maHgnity,  James  expected  to  terrorize  the  country  and 
make  it  submissive  to  whatever  he  chose  to  do.  He  went 
forward  now  with  bold  steps  on  the  path  he  had  deter- 
mined to  take  :  increased  his  army ;  appointed  Catholic 
officers  to  high  commands,  defiant  of  the  Test  Act ;  de- 
manded from  Parliament  that  not  only  the  Test  Act  but 
the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  should  be  repealed ;  and  turned 
a  deaf  ear  to  his  wisest  Catholic  counsellors,  who  saw  that 
he  was  taking  a  ruinous  course.  The  very  Tories  who 
had  pleased  him  so  well  when  Parliament  met  refused 
to  tamper  with  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  or  the  Test  Act ; 
remonstrated  in  plain  terms  against  his  violation  of  the 
latter  law  and  against  his  standing  army,  and  gave  him 
only  half  the  supply  of  money  that  he  asked.  He  pro- 
rogued the  Parliament  in  disgust  and  never  allowed  it  to 
meet  again. 

288.  The  Dispensing  Power.  What  Parliament  would 
not  do  for  the  king  was  partly  done  by  the  judges  of  a 
packed  court.  By  removing  four,  to  make  room  for  his 
own  creatures,  James  secured  a  bench  which  decided 
that  he  had  power  to  dispense  with  the  requirements  of 
the  Test  Act,  and  he  began  a  startling  exercise  of  that 
power.  Catholics  were  appointed  to  the  highest  places 
in  church  and  state  ;  Protestants  in  office  near  the  king, 
even  his  own  brothers-in-law,  of  the  Hyde  family,  were 
dismissed  on  refusing  to  change  their  faith.  In  fact, 
though  not  in  name,  the  Court  of  High  Commission, 
abolished  by  act  of  Parliament  in  1641,  was  audaciously 
revived,  for  the  swift  punishment  of  clergymen  who 
preached  against  the  doctrines  of  Rome.  In  all  these 
violent   and    unconstitutional   proceedings   James    acted 


1687-1688]      RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION.  465 

against  the  wishes  of  the  pope  and  against  the  judgment 
of  his  wisest  CathoUc  counsellors  in  England. 

289.  The  Declaration  of  Indulgence.  Thus  far, 
James  had  shown  no  sign  of  a  tolerant  disposition  towards 
any  Protestant  sect,  except  the  Quakers,  or  Friends, 
whom  he  patronized  in  a  singular  way.  But  now  he 
turned  to  the  Presbyterians,  Baptists,  and  other  perse- 
cuted sects,  with  sudden  professions  of  friendship  and  a 
zeal  for  toleration  at  large.  On  the  4th  of  April,  1687, 
he  issued  a  general  Declaration  of  Indulgence,  suspend- 
ing all  penal  religious  laws,  against  Protestants  and  Cath- 
olics alike.  The  relief  was  welcome  to  the  persecuted 
sects,  but  the  mode  in  which  it  came  was  not.  Nor  did 
the  better  class  of  English  Catholics,  apparently,  aj^prove 
the  rash  and  high-handed  way  in  which  James  had  under- 
taken to  liberate  their  church. 

His  course  excited  as  much  political  as  religious  alarm, 
increased  by  continual  attacks  on  the  constitution  and  on 
all  the  safeo-uards  of  law.     The  universities  were 

•  I     ■,      1      .       .    1  r     1         ■  1  1      •      Theuni- 

assailed,  their  rights  of  election  overthrown,  their  versities 
professors  and  fellows  arbitrarily  expelled.    For 
the  surer  packing  of  a  new  Parliament,  county  and  town 
officials  all  over  the  kingdom  were  turned  out,  to  make 
way  for  tools  of  the  court ;  but  even  with  that  done  the 
king  dared  not  allow  an  election  to  be  held. 

290.  The  Trial  of  the  Seven  Bishops.  Blind  to  all 
the  signs  which  warned  him  that  his  subjects  would  en- 
dure little  more,  James  repeated  his  Declaration  of  In- 
dulgence in  April,  1688,  and  ordered  it  to  be  read  in 
every  church.  The  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  six 
bishops  then  signed  a  petition  to  the  king,  asking  him  to 
withdraw  a  command  which  the  clergy  could  not  obey 
without  assenting  to  a  violation  of  law.  He  rejected 
the  petition  with  rage,  and  so  he  drove  the  clergy  of  a 


466  THE   CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.  [1688 

church  which,  for  years,  had  preached  the  extremest 
doctrine  of  submissiveness  to  kings,  into  an  attitude  of 
rebelUon  that  refuted  and  cancelled  forever,  on  that  point, 
all  that  it  had  taught.  There  were  few  ministers  in  the 
whole  kingdom  who  read  the  Declaration  on  the  ap- 
pointed day,  and  the  royal  mandate  was  defied  as  much 
by  the  Nonconformists  as  by  the  clergy  of  the  estab- 
lished church. 

The  seven  bishops  who  had  petitioned  him  were  marked 
by  the  king  to  receive  punishment  first.  Their  petition 
he  claimed  to  be  a  seditious  libel,  and  they  were  sent  to 
the  Tower,  where  they  remained  in  confinement  for  a 
week,  before  being  admitted  to  bail.  A  fortnight  later 
they  were  tried  in  the  packed  Court  of  King's  Bench, 
amid  as  great  excitement  as  was  ever  known,  and  were 
acquitted  by  the  jury,  despite  every  effort  to  the  con- 
trary of  judges  and  king. 

291.  Birth  of  an  Heir  to  King  James.  The  revolt  of 
the  clergy  and  the  trial  of  the  bishops  had  shown  that  the 
king  had  no  longer  any  hold  on  the  loyalty  of  the  coun- 
try. Still,  it  might  have  borne  with  him  till  his  death, 
in  the  expectation  that  his  daughter,  Mary,  and  her  hus- 
band, the  Prince  of  Orange,  would  peacefully  succeed ; 
but  just  at  this  time,  while  the  greatest  agitation  pre- 
vailed, that  expectation  was  dispelled  by  the  birth  of  a 
son  to  James.  This  broke  the  patience  of  the  people 
down.  They  suspected  fraud  ;  they  were  persuaded  that 
some  child,  not  the  queen's,  had  been  smuggled  into  the 
palace  to  be  put  forward  as  an  heir  to  the  crown.  So 
England  was  now  ripened  for  a  revolution  which  seems 
to  have  been,  for  the  moment,  more  unanimously  de- 
manded and  universally  approved  by  the  people  than 
any  other,  perhaps,  that  ever  occurred  in  the  world. 

292.  The  Coming  of  William  of  Orange.     On   the 


I68SJ  RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION.  467 

day  of  the  acquittal  of  the  bishops,  June  30,  1688,  an 
invitation,  bearing  great  names,  was  sent  to  William  of 
Orange,  urging  him  to  come  and  lead  a  national  rising 
for  the  rescue  of  England  from  the  peril  it  was  in.  lie 
had  long  been  in  correspondence  with  the  discontented  ; 
he  knew  the  state  of  affairs,  and  he  accepted  the  invita- 
tion, with  the  entire  concurrence  of  his  wife.  On  the 
5th  of  November  he  landed  with  a  small  force  at  Torbay. 
England  rose  to  welcome  and  support  him,  as  it  had 
promised  to  do.  King  James  was  deserted  by  his  own 
courtiers,  by  his  own  soldiers,  one  by  one,  in  rapid  suc- 
cession, and  finally  by  his  daughter  Anne.  On  the  12th 
of  December  he  fled  from  London,  and  his  enemies  were 
careful  to  assist  him  in  escaping  to  France.  His  blun- 
dering reign  was  at  an  end. 

293.  Social  State  of  the  Restoration  Period.  There 
is  no  reason  for  believing  that  the  corrupting  influence 
of  a  vicious  king  and  court  in  this  period  was  widely 
spread.  The  nation  continued  to  be  extensively  Puri- 
tanized,  and  more  healthily  so,  perhaps,  than  when  Puri- 
tanism was  in  fashion  and  in  power.  Even  in  London 
—  in  **the  City,"  properly  called  so  —  the  Puritan  Sab- 
bath was  quite  strictly  observed. 

Outside  of  the  capital  and  its  near  neighborhood,  there 
must  have  been  scanty  knowledge  of  public  affairs,  even 
among  the  better  informed.  Travel  was  difflcult  and 
dangerous  ;  the  roads  as  bad  as  possible  ;  highwaymen 
numerous.  But  the  small  beginnings  of  a  different  state 
of  things  were  being  made  :  the  beginnings  of  a  postal 
system,  of  public  coach  lines  that  attempted  speed,  and 
of  newspapers.  In  the  reign  of  Charles  11.  the  News- 
first  attempt  to  collect  news  systematically  for  p^p^^^- 
publication,  by  the  employment  of  reporters  {"  spyes," 
the  publisher   called  them),  was    made   by   one    Roger 


468 


THE    CENTURY   OF    REVOLUTION.     [1660-1688 


JOHN   BUNYAN. 


L' Estrange.  In  London, 
people  generally  resorted  for 
news  to  the  coffee  houses, 
which  became  the  most  nota- 
ble institutions  of  the  Eng- 
lish capital  at  this  time. 

294.  Literature  and  Sci- 
ence. That  Milton,  living 
through  half  the  period  of 
the  Stuart  Restoration,  gave 
his  greatest  works  to  the 
world  in  that  time  ;  that  the 
years  of  Charles  II.  were 
the  years  in  which  the  law  of  gravitation  was  discovered, 
by  Isaac  Newton,  and  the  greatest  English  study  of  the 
Milton,  human  mind  was  made,  by  John  Locke,  are  the 
lSc"'  three  grand  facts  that  shine  out  of  the  general 
Bunyan.  mcanness  in  this  chapter  of  Enghsh  history. 
The  poetical  literature  of  the  day  contains  but  one  name 
to  set  with  Milton's,  and  that  is  the  name  of  Dryden, 
whose  genius  was  crip- 
pled and  whose  poetry 
was  stiffened  in  form 
and  spirit  by  the  utter 
poverty  of  inspiration 
that  had  fallen  on  the 
age.  But  nearer  than 
Dryden  to  Milton,  in 
imaginative  genius,  was 
John  Bunyan,  and, 
next  after  ''  Paradise 
Lost,"  the  prose  alle- 
gorical drama  of  "The 
Pilgrim's       Progress,"  sir  isaac  newton. 


i66o-i685]       RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION.  469 

which  the  Puritan  tinker  wrote  in  Bedford  jail,  is  the 
highest  literary  product  of  the  time.  The  drama  of  the 
restored  theatres  was  debased  to  the  last  degree.  A 
noble  prose  came  from  the  pulpit  and  from  the  religious 
writers  of  the  period,  but  little  of  lasting  worth  from  any 
secular  source. 

Towards  Science  rather  than  towards  Letters  the  in- 
tellectual interest  of  the  age  was  drawn.     It  was 

*"  Sci6IlC6. 

really  the  age  of  full  birth  for  Science,  —  the 
age  in  which  natural  phenomena  began  to  win  the  gen- 
eral attention  of  inquiring  minds. 

295.  Industry.  —  Commerce.  —  Colonization.  The 
persecution  of  Hugue- 
nots and  the  revocation 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
in  France,  drove  thou- 
sands of  the  most  skil- 
ful French  workmen  in 
many  arts  and  trades 
to  England,  during  the 
later  years  of  Charles 
II.  and  the  reign  of 
James.  Their  coming 
was  favorable  to  a  large 
number  of  English  in- 
dustries ;  to  silk  and 
linen  weaving  especially,  but  also  to  the  manufacture  of 
paper,  glass,  clocks,  surgical  instruments,  and  the  like. 

The  Commonwealth  policy  of  the  Navigation  Act  was 
maintained,  but  with  changes  (1663  and  1672)  which 
made  it  as  hostile  to  the  English  colonies  in  TheNavi- 
America  as  it  was  to  foreign  rivals  in  the  ocean  nation  Act. 
carrying  trade.  The  colonists  were  allowed  to  import 
nothing  from  any  country   except   England,   and   trade 


^  JOHN    LOCKE. 


470  THE   CENTURY   OF   REVOLUTION.     [1660-1685 

between  one  colony  and  another  was  required  to  pass 
through  an  English  port  or  else  to  pay  a  heavy  tax. 
The  avowed  object  was  to  keep  the  colonies  "in  a  firmer 
dependence ; "  but  the  effect  was  to  plant  the  seeds  of  a 
desire  for  independence,  which  grew  from  that  time. 

As  stated  already  (see  section  270),  the  Dutch  colony  of 
New  Netherlands  was  acquired  by  conquest  in  1664,  con- 
firmed by  treaty  in  1674,  and  became  New  York.  New 
Jersey  was  included  in  the  cession  of  Dutch  rights,  and, 
after  some  changes  of  ownership,  passed  into  the  posses- 
sion of  proprietors,  mostly  Quakers,  of  whom  William 
Penn  was  one.  In  1681,  the  great  province  of  Pennsyl- 
vania was  granted  to  Penn,  in  satisfaction  of  a  debt  which 
the  English  crown  owed  to  his  father,  Admiral  Penn. 
Plfty  years  earlier  (1632),  the  neighboring  province  of 
Maryland  had  been  granted  by  Charles  L  to  the  Catholic 
Lord  Baltimore.  In  1663,  ^^^  second  Charles  had  made 
a  great  grant  of  territory  south  of  Virginia,  extending  to 
Florida,  to  a  company  of  his  courtiers,  including  General 
Monk  (Duke  of  Albemarle),  Clarendon,  and  Shaftesbury, 
who  named  it  Carolina  in  honor  of  the  king.  The  line 
of  English  colonies,  having  some  organized  form,  on  the 
Atlantic  coast,  was  now  nearly  complete. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

267.  Charles  XL 
Topics. 

1.  His  character. 

2.  First  acts  of  vengeance. 
Reference.  —  Green,  629-632. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  two  of  these  regicides  are 
connected  with  the  history  of  America  ?  (2.)  What  does  the 
fact  that  the  people  bore  patiently  with  Charles's  prosecution  of 
his  revenjre  in  the  case  of  the  regicides  and  of  Cromwell  and  Ire- 
ton  show  of  the  conditions  on  which  the  Restoration  was  effected  ? 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND    QUESTIONS.      471 

(3.)  To  what  degree  could  the  Restoration  be  considered  a  reh- 
gious  movement  ? 

268.  The  Vengeance  of  the  Church. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king's  desire  and  the  hope  of  the  Presbyterians. 

2.  Reaction  against  Presbyterianism. 

3.  The  Corporation  Act  and  the  Act  of  Uniformity. 

4.  The  king's  attempt  to  give  religious  freedom. 

5.  The  Conventicle  and  the  Five  Mile  acts. 
Referen'CE.  —  Green,  619-625. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  If  Presbyterians  were  in  charge  of 
the  municipal  elections,  how  would  the  Corporation  Act  affect  the 
parliamentary  majority.  (2.)  How  would  the  feeling  of  low 
churchmen  interfere  to  defeat  the  king's  aim  ?  (3.)  If  the  king 
could  not  accomphsh  his  aim  through  religious  feeling,  what 
other  sentiment  could  he  appeal  to?     (Ransome,  188,  189.) 

269.  The  Cavalier  Parliament  and  the  King. 

Topics. 

1.  Early  and  later  attitudes  of  the  Cavaliers  in  Parliament. 

2.  Sale  of  Dunkirk. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  726,  727. 

270.  War  with  the  Dutch. 
Topics. 

1.  Causes  of  the  war  and  seizure  of  New  Netherlands. 

2.  Charles's  use  of  the  grant  of  Parliament. 

3.  The  navy  and  De  Ruyter's  victory. 

4.  Reaction  against  the  king  and  the  fall  of  Clarendon. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  735,  736. 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  Whom  did  Charles  II.  marry? 
(Gardiner,  ii.  587.)  (2.)  What  possession  did  she  bring  to  Charles  ? 
(3.)  Locate  this  place  on  the  map.  (4.)  How  does  the  colony 
which  has  grown  up  from  this  compare  in  importance  with  other 
foreign  possessions  of  Great  Britain  ?  (5.)  How  did  the  Dutch 
view  the  English  possession  of  this  colony?  (6.)  Name  the  pos- 
sessions which  the  Dutch  hold  in  that  vicinity  to-day.  (7.)  How 
does  the  possession  of  India  influence  England  in  European  poli- 
tics to-day  ? 


4/2  RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION. 

271.  The  Plague  and  the  Great  Fire. 
Topics. 

1.  Ravages  of  the  plague. 

2.  EjEfect  of  the  fire. 

References.  —  Colby,  205-208 ;  Gardiner,  ii.  590-592.  The 
plague  in  London  :  Bright,  ii.  732 ;  Traill,  iv.  465-470 ;  Defoe, 
Journal  of  the  Plague. 

272.  The  CabaL 
Topics. 

1.  Origin  of  the  name. 

2.  Germ  of  the  English  Cabinet. 

Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  739.  Changes  in  the  Privy  Council : 
Ransome,  177,  178;   H.Taylor,  ii.  367-369. 

273.  The  Triple  Alliance. 
Topic. 

I.  Threatening  power  of  France,  and  appeal  of  the  Dutch. 
Reference.  —  Green,  637,  638. 

274.  Charles  as  a  Hireling  of  Louis. 

Topic. 

I.  Conditions  of  the  king's  secret  treaty  with  France. 

Reference.  —  Bright,  ii.  741,  742. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  When  does  bribery  as  a  political 
force  appear.''  (Bright,  ii.  747,  748,  and  Gardiner,  ii.  611.)  (2.) 
Was  an  alliance  with  France  the  right  one  for  England  to  make 
at  this  time.'*  (3.)  In  what  way  had  the  aspect  of  continental 
politics  changed. 

275.  The  Declaration  of  Indulgence. 

Topics. 

1.  Attack  on  the  Dutch  and  the  Indulgence. 

2.  The  repeal  of  the  Indulgence. 
Reference.  —  Green,  639,  640. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  religious  party  had  now  a 
majority  of  the  country  against  it?  (2.)  When  the  dissenters 
joined  with  churchmen  to  oppose  the  Indulgence,  what  treat- 
ment did  they  bring  upon  themselves  ?  (3.)  What  is  an  estab- 
lished church?  (4.)  Are  dissenters  compelled  to  contribute  to  its 
support  if  they  do  not  attend  it  ?     (5.)  Does  that  seem  a  fair 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      4/3 

arrangement  ?  (6.)  On  what  terms  did  Parliament  now  begin  to 
grant  supplies  ?  (Bright,  ii.  737.)  (7.)  Where  did  the  king  nat- 
urally turn  when  he  wanted  to  borrow  ?  (8.)  Out  of  what  sources 
of  income  did  the  king  expect  to  meet  this  debt  ?  (9.)  Was  it  then, 
in  fact,  the  king's  debt  or  the  country's  debt?  (10.)  To  whom  do 
we  ascribe  the  beginning  of  this  debt  in  England  ?  (Taswell- 
Langmead,  620.) 

276.  The  Test  Act. 

Topics. 

1.  Religion  of  the  king  and  his  brother. 

2.  Parliament  passes  the  Test  Act. 
Reference.  —  Green,  641. 

277.  The  Country  Party. 

Topics. 

1.  Discovery  of  the  secret  treaty  of  Dover. 

2.  Shaftesbury  and  the  Country  party. 

3.  Peace  with  Holland. 

4.  Corrupting  influence  of  the  French  king's  money. 
Reference.  —  Green,  645-649. 

278.  The  So-called  "Popish  Plot." 
Topics. 

1,  Perjured  testimony  of  Titus  Oates  and  others. 

2.  Popular  fear  and  attack  on  the  Catholics. 
Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  21-24. 

279.  The  Exclusion  Bill. 

Topics. 

1.  Objection  to  James  as  Charles's  heir. 

2.  Disagreement  over  another  successor. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  617. 

280.  The  Reaction. 
Topics. 

1.  Rise  of  Whiofs  and  Tories. 

2.  Fall  of  Shaftesbury. 

3.  Forfeiture  of  the  London  and  other  charters. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  620;  Green,  657:  Hale,  Fall  of  the 

Stuarts,  33-36;  Montague,  141;   Ransome,  185,  186;  Macaulay, 
i.  200. 


474  RESTORATION    AND    REVOLUTION. 

Research  (2uestions.  —  (i.)  When  did  the  name  "trimmer" 
come  into  play  in  English  politics?  (Gardiner,  ii.  6i8.)  (2.) 
What  does  it  mean  ?  (3.)  What  does  the  fall  of  one  after  the 
other  of  the  king's  ministers  show  of  the  struggle  between  king 
and  Parliament  ? 

281.  Russell,  Sidney,  and  the  Rye  House  Plot. 
Topics. 

1.  Two  Whig  projects  of  resistance. 

2.  Treatment  of  those  engaged  in  the  Rye  House  Plot. 
Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  60-66. 

282.  The  Habeas  Corpus  Act. 
Topic. 

I.  Its  importance  and  former  enforcement. 
References.  —  Montague,   142,  143  ;  Bright,  ii.  753 ;    Ransome, 
184;    Hale,   Fall  of   the   Stuarts,  32;    H.  Taylor,  ii.  380-383; 
Taswell-Langmead,  623,  627. 

283.  The  State  of  Scotland. 
Topics. 

1.  Reestablishment  of  Episcopacy  in  Scotland. 

2.  Persecution  of  Covenanters  by  Lauderdale  and  Claverhouse. 

3.  Battles  of  Drumclog  and  Bothwell  Bridge. 
3.  The  Duke  of  York  in  Scotland. 

Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  37-42. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Had  the  union  of  kingdoms  brought 
about  by  Cromwell  remained  in  force?  (Green,  714.)  (2.)  What 
was  the  condition  in  Ireland  ?     (Gardiner,  ii.  595.) 

284.  Death  of  Charles  II.  —  Accession  of  James  II. 

Topics. 

1.  Change  in  rulers. 

2.  Character  of  James. 

Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  68-70. 

285.  The  Argyle  and  Monmouth  Rebellions. 

Topics. 

1.  Power  of  Toryism  and  outbreak  of  the  rebellion. 

2.  Death  of  Argyle  and  the  battle  of  Sedgemoor. 
Reference. —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  88-101. 


TOPICS,  REFERENCES,  AND   QUESTIONS.     475 

286.  The  "  Bloody  Assizes  "  of  Judge  Jeffreys. 
Tories. 

1.  Kirke  and  Jeffreys. 

2.  The  "  Bloody  Assizes." 

References.  —  Green,  665,  666  ;  Colby,  214-217. 

287.  The  Parliament  and  the  King. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king's  ruinous  course. 

2.  Tory  opposition  in  Parliament. 
Reference.  —  Ransome,  1 84-1 91. 

288.  The  Dispensing  Power. 
Topics. 

1.  The  king  packs  the  bench  and  annuls  the  Test  Act. 

2.  Revival  of  the  Court  of  High  Commission. 
4.  Obstinacy  and  lack  of  wisdom  in  James. 

Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  107-110. 

289.  The  Declaration  of  Indulgence. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king's  attitude  toward  Protestant  sects. 

2.  Objection  to  Declaration  and  alarm  at  the  king's  course. 
Reference. —  Montague,  145. 

290.  The  Trial  of  the  Seven  Bishops. 

Topics. 

1.  Repetition  of  the  Indulgence  and  petition  of  the  bishops. 

2.  Arrest  and  trial  of  the  bishops. 
Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  125-129. 

291.  Birth  of  an  Heir  to  King  James. 
Topics. 

1.  Effect  of  the  birth  of  an  heir. 

2.  Suspicion  of  fraud  and  its  results. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  643. 

292.  The  Coming  of  William  of  Orange. 
Topic. 

I.   Invitation  to  William  and  end  of  James's  reign. 
Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  134-146. 


4/6 


RESTORATION   AND   REVOLUTION. 


293.  Social  State  of  the  Restoration  Period 

Topics. 

1.  Healthy  growth  of  Puritanism. 

2.  Growth  of  towns  and  condition  of  highways. 

3.  Gathering  of  news  and  coffee-houses. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  ii.  628-634.  Coffee-house  of  the  period  : 
Colby,  208-212  ;  Bright,  ii.  747;  Gardiner,  ii.  630  ;  Macaulay,  i. 
286-290. 

294.  Literature  and  Science. 
Topics. 

1.  Literature;   Milton,  Dryden,  Bunyan,  and  Locke. 

2.  Science;   Sir  Isaac  Newton. 

References.  —  Traill,  iv.  422-438.  The  Royal  Society  :  Gardi- 
ner, ii.  598:  Guest,  487,  488;  Green,  609-611  ;  Macaulay,  i.  317- 
322 ;  Traill,  iv.  286,  403,  404,  462. 

295.  Industry.  —  Comnierce. —  Colonization. 
Topics. 

1.  Huguenot  refugees. 

2.  The  Navigation  Act  and  the  colonies. 

3.  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  Carolinas. 
References.  —  Bright,  ii.  790-804.     Trade  and  finance  :  Bright, 

ii.  792-800;  Gibbins,  129-138;  Traill,  iv.  445-460.  Agriculture 
in  the  seventeenth  century:  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  182- 
185;  Gibbins,  108-120;  Rogers,  452-467;  Bright,  ii.  793,  794; 
Traill,  iv.  115-121,  439-445  ;  Macaulay,  i.  242-246. 


LINEAGE    OF    THE    STEWART    OR    STUART    SOVEREIGNS    OF 
SCOTLAND  AND  ENGLAND,  FROM  MARY,  QUEEN  OF  SCOTS. 


Mary, 


r 


Queen  of  Scots,   j 


married 

Henry, 

Lord  Damley. 


^ 


James  I., 

1603-1625, 

of  England 

(being 

James  VI. 

of  Scotland). 


Charles  II., 

1660-1685. 

Mary, 

William  of 

married 

Orange, 

Charles  I., 

William]  I.,     ' 
Prince  of 

(afterward 

1625-1649, 

William  III. 

married 

Orange. 

of  England). 

enrietta  Maria 

of  France. 

Mary, 
16S9-1694, 

James  II., 

married 

1685-1688, 

William  IIL, 

married 

{of  Orange), 

Anne  Hyde. 

1689-1702. 

Anne, 
.       1702-1714- 

SURVEY   OF   GENERAL   HISTORY. 

THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY. 

Early  Characteristics.  The  glow  and  brilliancy  of  intellec- 
tual life  in  the  seventeenth  century  was  followed  by  a  time  of 
chill  and  dulness,  which  lasted,  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
through  its  early  and  middle  years.  There  seemed  to  be 
some  deadening  of  spirit  in  the  world,  —  some  loss  of  warmth 
and  earnestness  in  feeling,  — some  general  weakening  of  the 
beliefs  that  inspire  and  the  hopes  that  uplift.  Voltaire,  who 
treated  everything  with  a  mocking  wit,  appeared  to  be  the 
representative  genius  of  the  age.  Poetry  was  stiffened  into 
the  cold  forms  of  verse  that  we  find  in  the  rhymed  essays  of 
Pope,  and  the  nobler  arts  in  general  were  touched  by  the 
same  pervading  chill. 

Scientific  studies  were  carried  forward  diligently  with  eye 
and  hand,  observing  and  experimenting;  astronomers  watched 
the  heavens,  mapped  the  stars,  gathered  facts  industriously ; 
geology,  chemistry,  and  botany  were  really  founded  as  true 
sciences,  and  the  great  field  of  electrical  discovery  was 
opened  up.  There  was  notable  progress,  indeed,  along 
many  lines  of  advance  in  knowledge  ;  but  it  was  seldom 
lighted,  as  it  had  been  before  and  would  be  again,  by  flashes 
of  new  scientific  thought. 

Later  Characteristics.  But  genial  influences  of  some  kind 
were  working  under  the  cold  surface  of  that  peculiar  age  to 
stir  its  blood.  Their  first  and  finest  effect  appeared  in  many 
signs  of  a  new  growth  of  fellow  feeling  among  men, — a 
quickened  attentiveness  to  sufferings  and  wrongs,  —  a  deep- 
ened sense  of  duty  to  humanity  at  large.  Many  of  the 
noblest  of   benevolent   movements  were   begun  before  the 


4/8  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

eighteenth  century  closed  :  the  condemnation  of  slavery  and 
the  slave  trade,  for  example  ;  the  reforming  of  barbarous  pris- 
ons ;  the  better  treatment  of  the  insane ;  the  teaching  of  the 
deaf  and  dumb.  The  growth  of  fellow  feeling  which  gave 
these  kindly  proofs  was  being  carried,  at  the  same  time,  into 
political  ideas.  Notions  of  freedom  and  equal  rights,  which 
had  been,  for  two  centuries  and  a  half,  beaten  down  in  the 
minds  of  every  people  except  the  English,  Dutch,  and  Swiss, 
began  to  revive. 

Under  such  generous  influences,  poetry  was  once  more  in- 
spired. Lessing,  Goethe,  and  Schiller  gave  Germany,  at  last, 
its  high  place  in  the  choir  of  song.  Cowper  and  Burns  put 
life  and  natural  feeling  again  into  English  verse.  Music  was 
raised  to  a  higher  place  among  the  great  arts.  All  literature 
took  on  a  warmer  tone,  and  all  philosophy  was  led,  by  Im- 
manuel  Kant,  into  loftier  regions  of  thought. 

Then  began  that  wonderful  refitting  and  refurnishing  of 
the  earth,  by  mechanical  invention  and  scientific  discovery, 
which  has  made  it  a  habitation  for  mankind  so  very  different 
from  that  which  our  ancestors  knew  (see  Survey,  Nineteenth 
Century). 

Tlie  Last  Years  of  Louis  XLV.  Europe  was  still  harassed, 
in  the  first  years  of  the  century,  by  the  unscrupulous  ambi- 
tions of  Louis  XIV.  of  France.  Despite  his  solemn  renun- 
ciation, for  himself,  his  wife,  and  all  their  descendants,  of  all 
claim  to  the  Spanish  crown  (see  page  345),  he  had  persuaded 
the  childless  and  half  imbecile  King  of  Spain,  Charles  II.,  to 
bequeath  the  whole  Spanish  dominion  to  one  of  Louis's 
grandsons,  who  might  inherit,  likewise,  the  crown  of  France. 
Charles  died  in  1700;  his  bequest  was  accepted,  and  the 
young  French  prince  was  sent  to  take  possession  of  the 
Spanish  throne. 

With  great  difficulty,  after  much  discouragement,  William 
of  Orange  formed  a  new  Grand  Alliance,  of  England,  Hol- 
land, Austria,  and  most  of  the  German  states,  to  oppose  this 
practical  union  of    Spain  with    France.     The  "  War  of   the 


THE   EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY.  479 

Spanish  Succession,"  which  opened  then,  raged  in  the  Neth- 
erlands, France,  Spain,  (xermany,  Italy,  America,  and  on  the 
ocean,  for  twelve  years  (1702-17 14).  William  of  Orange 
died  just  as  it  began,  but  two  great  soldiers,  Marlborough 
and  Prince  Eugene  of  Savoy,  who  commanded  the  armies  of 
the  allies,  won  a  series  of  extraordinary  victories,  which 
stripped  its  tinsel  glories  from  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV., 
broke  the  military  prestige  of  France,  and  mortally  weakened 
Spain.  By  the  treaties  of  Utrecht  and  Rastadt,  in  17 13  and 
1 7 14,  France  yielded  Nova  Scotia,  Newfoundland,  and  Hud- 
son's Bay  to  England ;  Spain  gave  up  Gibraltar  and  Minorca 
to  the  English,  Naples,  Milan,  Mantua,  Sardinia,  and  most 
of  the  Spanish  Netherlands  to  Austria,  Sicily  to  the  Duke  of 
Savoy,  with  the  title  of  king,  and  certain  strong  forts  on  the 
Flemish  frontier  to  the  Dutch.  The  French  intruder,  Philip 
v.,  kept  his  throne,  however,  and  founded  a  Bourbon  line  of 
Spanish  kings. 

In  17 15,  Louis  XIV.  died,  leaving  a  kingdom  that  had  rea- 
son to  remember  him  with  hate. 

The  Wa7's  of  Charles  XII.  of  Sweden.  Another  war  was 
raging  meantime  in  the  north  and  east.  Peter  the  Great  of 
Russia  had  conspired  with  the  kings  of  Poland  and  Denmark 
to  take  territory  from  a  young  king  of  Sweden,  Charles  XII., 
who  came  to  the  throne  in  1697.  They  thought  him  weak 
and  frivolous  ;  they  w^ere  quickly  undeceived.  Instead  of 
attacking  they  w^ere  attacked,  and  it  was  in  their  dominions, 
not  his,  that  the  war  was  fought  for  nine  years  (i 700-1 709). 
Charles  was  ruined  at  last  by  the  mistake  which  Napoleon 
repeated  a  hundred  years  later,  —  leading  his  army  into  the 
depths  of  Russia  and  wearing  it  out  in  a  useless  march.  He 
was  killed  in  17 18. 

Alliance  against  Spain.  Before  this  happened,  the  powers 
of  the  west  were  again  in  arms,  with  a  strange  shifting  of 
sides.  The  Bourbon  Philip  V.  of  Spain  had  quarrelled  al- 
ready with  his  royal  relatives  of  France,  over  schemes  into 
which  he  was  drawn  by  a  reckless  minister,  Alberoni,  and  by 


480  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

his  queen,  Elizabeth  Farnese.  The  result  was  an  alliance  of 
France  with  England,  Holland,  and  Austria,  in  a  war  which 
drove  Alberoni  from  power  and  did  fresh  injury  to  Spain. 
As  one  consequence  of  the  war,  the  Duke  of  Savoy  ex- 
changed Sicily  for  Sardinia,  and  bore  the  title  of  King  of 
Sardinia  from  that  time. 

The  War  of  the  Polish  Succession.  A  few  years  of  peace 
followed  the  Spanish  disturbance,  and  then  the  disputed  elec- 
tion of  a  king  of  Poland  gave  rise  to  another  war  (1733). 
France  pressed  one  candidate,  Austria  and  Russia  another, 
and  they  fought  over  the  result,  Spain  and  Sardinia  being 
joined  with  France.  This  gave  the  occasion  for  what  is 
known  as  the  "  First  Family  Compact  "  of  the  Bourbon  kings 
of  France  and  Spain.  Austria  suffered  heavily  in  the  war, 
losing  Naples  and  Sicily  ("  the  Two  Sicilies,"  so  called), 
which  were  conferred  on  the  Spanish  king's  younger  son. 
Thus  a  third  Bourbon  monarchy  arose. 

The  War  of  JeJikins's  Ear.  Out  of  the  Bourbon  Family 
Compact  came  feelings  and  provocations  which  led  to  a  petty 
war  between  England  and  Spain  (1739),  commonly  spoken  of 
as  "the  War  of  Jenkins's  Ear"  (see  section  329),  which 
soon  merged  itself  in  the  great  conflict  described  next  below. 

The  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession.  The  emperor, 
Charles  VI.,  who  died  in  1740,  left  no  son,  but  willed  his  he- 
reditary sovereignty,  as  Archduke  of  Austria,  King  of  Hun- 
gary, etc.,  to  his  eldest  daughter,  Maria  Theresa.  The  will 
had  been  legally  sanctioned  by  the  principalities  concerned, 
and  it  had  been  solemnly  guaranteed  by  the  sovereigns  of 
almost  every  European  state  ;  yet  Charles  was  hardly  buried 
before  half  the  guarantors  of  that  Pragmatic  Sanction,  as  it 
was  called,  were  making  combinations  to  seize  some  part  or 
the  whole  of  the  dominions  he  had  bequeathed.  Frederick 
II.  of  Prussia  (called  "  the  Great "),  the  kings  of  Spain, 
France,  and  Sardinia,  the  electors  of  Bavaria  and  Saxony, 
were  all  in  the  attack,  either  separately  or  together ;  England 
and  Holland,  alone,  among  the  important  powers,  supported 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY.  481 

Maria  Theresa  in  her  rights.  Frederick  of  Prussia  tore  Sile- 
sia and  Glatz  from  her  possession  ;  the  King  of  Spain  ob- 
tained spoils  to  the  extent  of  three  Italian  duchies,  and  the 
King  of  Sardinia  was  bought  over  to  the  Austrian  side  by  a 
small  territorial  bribe.  France,  Bavaria,  and  Saxony  suffered 
heavily  in  the  war,  and  were  glad  to  end  it,  by  the  Treaty  of 
Aix-la-Chapelle,  in  1748,  with  no  gain  to  themselves. 

Prussia^  and  the  Seven  Years^  War.  The  War  of  the  Aus- 
trian Succession  was  really  profitable  to  but  one  of  the  par- 
ties engaged  in  it,  and  that  was  the  King  of  Prussia.  Prussia 
(with  Brandenburg  united  to  it — see  page  344)  had  been 
raised  from  a  duchy  to  a  kingdom  in  1700,  by  decree  of  the 
emperor,  Leopold  I.  Frederick  the  Great  was  the  third  of 
its  kings.  Of  his  remarkable  ability  there  is  no  question, 
and  it  was  soon  sharply  proved.  He  had  roused  an  impla- 
cable enemy  in  Maria  Theresa,  and  she  worked  unceasingly, 
after  the  peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  to  make  a  combination 
against  him.  Russia  and  Saxony  were  first  brought  secretly 
into  her  scheme  ;  then,  when  England  and  France  came  to 
blows  in  America  (see  sections  336,  337),  and  the  former  went 
into  alliance  with  Frederick,  she  drew  France  into  her  league. 
As  her  combination  finally  shaped  itself,  it  embraced  Austria, 
France,  Russia,  Sweden,  Poland,  Saxony,  and  the  Palatinate, 
with  Spain  added  at  the  last.  Against  this  appalling  league 
of  enemies,  bent  on  his  destruction,  the  King  of  Prussia  de- 
fended himself,  with  little  more  than  English  help,  for  seven 
years  (1756-1762),  and  gave  up  not  one  foot  of  the  soil  that 
he  claimed  ;  while  England,  his  ally,  came  out  of  that  terri- 
ble Seven  Years'  War  with  enormous  colonial  conquests  from 
France  and  Spain  (see  sections  338-340). 

Germany.  The  treaties  of  Paris  and  Hubertsburg,  1763, 
which  ended  the  Seven  Years'  War,  were  followed  by  a  gen- 
erally peaceful  period  in  Germany  of  about  thirty  years,  dur- 
ing which  the  people  of  that  much  troubled,  much  divided, 
much  oppressed  country,  found  the  first  fair  opportunity  that 
had  been  given  them  to  waken  and  exercise  their  genius  in 
letters,  science,  and  art. 


482  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

The  Partition  of  Poland.  It  was  in  this  period,  however, 
that  the  destruction  of  the  Polish  nation  was  accomplished, 
by  Frederick  and  Joseph,  in  conspiracy  with  the  Russian  em- 
press, Catherine  II. 

This  was  done  by  three  successive  partitions,  in  1772, 
1793,  and  1795.  The  first  partition  had  so  sobering  an 
effect  on  the  Polish  nobles  that  they  consented,  in  1791,  to 
the  adoption  of  a  new  constitution,  which  went  far  in  many 
directions  towards  popular  rights  ;  but  the  movement  was 
too  late.  It  only  provoked  fresh  attacks,  and  Poland,  as  a 
nation,  disappeared, 

Catherine  II.  of  Russia.  Catherine  II.,  then  empress  of 
Russia,  was  a  German  princess,  who  had  mounted  the  throne 
of  her  husband,  the  late  Tsar,  after  causing  his  deposition 
and  death.  A  woman  of  great  ability,  of  strong  will,  and  of 
no  moral  principle,  her  reign  is  the  most  notable  in  Russian 
history  except  that  of  Peter  the  Great.  Besides  adding  the 
larger  part  of  Poland  to  the  empire,  she  subjugated  the  Tar- 
tars of  the  Crimea  and  made  extensive  conquests  from  the 
Turks.  She  did  more  than  even  Peter  to  bring  Russia  into 
closer  relations  with  western  Europe  and  under  the  influence 
of  its  ideas  and  its  arts. 

France  and  the  Fre?ich  Revolution.  In  France,  the  impos- 
ing monarchy  that  Louis  XIV.  had  built,  and  which  crushed 
a  miserable  people,  kept  up  its  delusive  show  throughout  the 
long  reign  (17 15-17  74)  of  his  successor,  Louis  XV.;  but  the 
crashing  fall  of  it  came  before  the  century  was  at  an  end. 
Apparently  the  people  were  suffering  less  from  their  dreadful 
misgovernment  in  the  last  half  of  the  century  than  they  had 
been  in  the  first ;  but  their  consciousness  of  it  had  increased. 
New  ideas  of  political  right  had  been  planted  in  their  minds, 
and  the  founding,  in  America,  of  the  republic  of  the  United 
States  (1776-1783)  had  a  powerful  effect  in  stimulating  the 
growth  of  such  ideas.  Thus  it  happened  that  the  Bourbon 
monarchy  became  unendurable  to  them  after  it  had  passed 
its  worst  state,  and  they  wreaked  vengeance  for  its  oppres- 
sions on  the  least  oppressive  of  its  kings. 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY.  483 

In  1788,  the  king,  Louis  XVI.,  yielded  to  demands  for  a 
meeting  of  the  States-General,  the  ancient  national  legislature 
of  France,  which  had  not  been  assembled  since  the  year 
1614.  When  it  met,  in  1789,  the  Third  Estate,  or  Commons, 
grasped  control ;  the  king's  authority  vanished  ;  a  storm  of 
revolution  broke  out,  and  rising  mobs  of  peasants  and  work- 
men began  to  drive  the  oppressive  nobility  to  flight.  No 
training  had  prepared  the  French  people  for  a  moderate  or 
prudent  use  of  the  power  thus  suddenly  seized.  In  destroy- 
ing the  old  wrongs  they  knew  not  where  to  stop,  or  how  to 
construct  a  free  government  in  the  place  of  the  despotism 
they  had  overthrown.  The  fiercest  and  wildest  spirits  among 
them  (organized  in  what  came  to  be  called  Jacobin  Clubs) 
took  the  lead.  A  constitutional  monarchy,  agreed  to  in 
1 791,  was  cast  down  a  year  later,  and  the  king  was  put  to 
death.  His  queen,  Marie  Antoinette,  followed  him  to  the 
guillotine  in  1793.  Then  followed  the  awful  period  known 
as  the  "  Reign  of  Terror,"  during  which  thousands  of  per- 
sons suspected  of  hostility  to  the  revolution  were  put  to 
death.  At  last,  the  Jacobin  leaders  began  to  destroy  one 
another,  and  when  Robespierre,  the  most  influential  among 
them,  fell  (July,  1794),  the  Reign  of  Terror  came  to  an  end. 

Meantime  the  Revolutionists  had  plunged  France  into  war 
with  its  neighbors  on  every  side,  undertaking  to  break  mo- 
narchical governments  down.  Their  wars  had  been  carried 
on  with  astonishing  success  ;  but  far  greater  successes  came 
after  the  downfall  of  the  Terrorists,  when  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte rose  to  command.  Two  years  (1796-97)  of  dazzling 
victory  over  the  Austrians  in  Italy  gave  Napoleon  such  a 
mastery  of  the  French  army,  and  such  a  hold  on  the  admira- 
tion of  the  people  that  he  was  able  (1799),  to  overthrow  the 
government  then  in  power,  and  to  set  up  a  new  one,  with 
himself,  as  First  Consul,  at  its  head.  Then  began,  as  the 
eighteenth  century  closed,  the  long  struggle  of  Europe 
against  the  devouring  ambition  of  this  unscrupulous  master 
of  France. 


THE  PERIOD  OF  ARISTOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT. 

1688-1820. 


CHAPTER   XX. 

the  settlement  of  a  constitutional  monarchy. 

William  and  Mary.  —  Anne.     1688-17 14. 

296.  Pilling  the  Vacant  Throne.  It  is  not  easy  to 
see  how  the  Tories  and  Whigs,  who  jointly  brought  Wil- 
liam of  Orange  to  England,  could  ever  have  agreed  as  to 
what  should  be  done  after  he  came,  if  James  had  not, 
fortunately,  cleared  most  of  the  difficulties  of  agreement 
away,  by  his  opportune  flight  to  France.  If  he  had 
stayed  in  England,  it  could  hardly  have  been  possible 
to  deprive  him,  in  Tory  eyes  and  Tory  thought,  of  the 
sacred  character  and  authority  of  a  king.  By  quitting 
it,  he  furnished  the  ground  for  a  plausible  theory,  which 
many  Tories  were  willing  to  accept,  that  he  had  abdi- 
cated the  throne.  Then  came  anxious  debate  as  to  the 
mode  in  which  the  vacant  throne  should  be  filled.  In 
the  end  (February  13,  1689),  William  and  Mary  were 
declared  to  be  jointly  king  and  queen  ;  but  full  regal 
power  was  conferred  on  the  former,  to  be  exercised  in 
the  name  of  both.  Thus  the  ancient  right  of  the  Eng- 
Hsh  people  to  regulate  the  hereditary  succession  of  royal- 
born  persons  in  their  monarchy  was  exercised  once  more, 
and  established  for  all  time. 

297.  The   Declaration    of   Rights    and   the    Bill   of 


1689]  A   CONSTITUTIONAL   MONARCHY.  485 

Rights.  At  the  same  time,  in  the  same  instrument,  a 
broad  declaration  of  the  principles  of  constitutional  gov- 
ernment, which  the  late  kings  had  obstinately  violated, 
was  made  by  Parliament  and  accepted  by  the  new  sover- 
eigns, "  so  that  the  right  of  the  king  to  his  crown  and  of 
the  people  to  their  liberties  might  rest  upon  one  and  the 
same  title-deed."  In  the  following  October,  Parliament 
embodied  the  Declaration  in  a  Bill  of  Rights,  which 
takes  its  place  with  Magna  Carta  and  the  Petition  of 
Right,  in  forming  what  has  been  called  "  the  legal  con- 
stitutional code  "  of  English  government. 

The  Bill  of  Rights  extinguished,  forever,  the  claim  of 
authority  in  the  crown,  without  consent  of  Parliament, 
to  suspend  or  to  dispense  with  any  law,  or  to  levy  money 
in  any  manner,  or  to  interfere  with  the  right  Buiof 
of  petition,  or  to  raise  or  keep  a  standing  army  ^^^^^s- 
within  the  kingdom  in  time  of  peace.  It  established 
lastingly  the  freedom  of  parliamentary  elections,  the  free- 
dom of  speech  and  action  in  Parliament,  and  the  fre- 
quency of  its  meetings  "for  the  amending,  strengthening 
and  preserving  of  the  laws."  It  prohibited  "cruel  and 
unusual  punishments,"  excessive  fines  and  excessive  bail. 
It  secured  to  "subjects  which  are  Protestants"  (not  to 
Catholics)  the  right  to  "  have  arms  for  their  defence." 
It  named  the  queen's  sister,  Princess  Anne,  as  the  suc- 
cessor to  King  William  and  Queen  Mary,  if  the  latter 
should  leave  no  children,  and  it  excluded  from  the  throne 
every  person  belonging  to  the  Roman  church,  or  married 
to  one  in  that  church. 

298.  The  Deeper  Effects  of  the  Revolution.  The 
immense  importance,  however,  of  the  political  revolution 
of  1688  is  not  found  in  the  enactments  of  constitutional 
law  to  which  it  led,  so  much  as  in  the  changed  state  of 
mind  that   it   forced  upon  the  people.     That  obstinate 


486 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT. 


[1689 


and  fatal  superstition  of  loyalty  which  had  looked  upon 
a  king  as  a  sacred  personage,  divinely  gifted  with  an 
authority  which  none  could  resist  without  sin,  had  no 
root  left  in  the  English  mind.  The  church,  which 
planted  that  superstition,  had  now  helped  to  tear  it  away. 
299.  The  Tory  Reaction.  —  The  Jacobites.  Never- 
theless, the  "  glorious  revolution  "  was  followed  by  a  mean 
reaction  of  sentiment,  which  went  to  even  dangerous 
lengths.  Because  the  new  king  was  not  gracious  in  man- 
ners ;  because  he  was 
grave  and  silent ;  be- 
cause he  was  a  for- 
eigner and  spoke  Eng- 
lish badly ;  because  he 
was  a  statesman  with 
broad  views,  who  stud- 
ied the  common  inter- 
ests of  the  two  coun- 
tries that  he  ruled,  in 


?vi 


1^1    their  relation  to  affairs 

f  all ■>'  V 


1.T 

''  at  large  ;  because  he 
would  not  be  the  mere 
chief  of  a  party,  but 
tried  to  be  a  national 
king ;  and,  also,  be- 
cause he  did  undoubt- 
edly lavish  too  many 
favors  on  Dutch  fol- 
lowers and  friends,  there  was  a  shamefully  large  number 
of  men  in  both  church  and  state  who  soon  forgot  the 
intolerable  conduct  of  James  and  were  ready  to  bring  the 
old  king  back.  If  experience  had  taught  anything  to 
the  latter,  it  seems  possible  that  the  Tory  reaction  would 
have  gone  far  enough  to  restore  him  to  the  throne.     But, 


WILLIAM    III. 


i689]  A   CONSTITUTIONAL   MONARCHY.  487 

fortunately,  every  expression  that  came  from  him  helped 
to  discourage  the  thought  of  his  return.  Those  who  con- 
tinued to  regard  him  as  the  rightful  king,  and  his  son 
as  the  rightful  heir  to  the  crown,  were  called  Jacobites, 
from  the  Latin  form  of  the  name  of  James. 

300.  The  Mutiny  Act.  William  was  harassed  through- 
out his  reign  by  jealousies  and  treacheries,  against  which 
no  common  resolution  or  ability  could  have  contended 
with  even  moderate  success.  A  mutinous  movement  in 
the  army,  which  occurred  in  March,  1689,  and  which 
was  vigorously  checked,  gave  rise  to  a  device  whereby 
the  maintenance  of  a  necessary  standing  army  without 
danger  to  popular  freedom  was  made  practicable  for  the 
first  time.  Martial  law  and  courts-martial,  which  are 
necessary  to  military  discipline,  were  authorized  for  a 
period  of  six  months  only.  At  the  expiration  of  the  act 
it  was  renewed  for  a  year,  and  the  same  practice  has 
continued  until  the  present  day.  Only  from  year  to 
year  has  the  crown  been  given  power  to  govern  and  con- 
trol an  armed  force.  This  created  a  new  necessity  for 
the  annual  summoning  of  Parliament,  and  an  added  safe- 
guard of  constitutional  government  was  secured. 

301.  The  Toleration  Act.  There  was  never  before, 
and  probably  never  afterwards,  so  much  friendliness  be- 
tween the  clergy  of  the  established  church  and  the 
Nonconformists  as  appeared  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Revolution,  which  they  had  joined  hands  in  bringing 
about.  It  soon  vanished,  but  it  lingered  long  enough 
to  smooth  the  passage  of  an  act  which  tolerated  non- 
conformity in  a  peculiarly  English  way.  The  new  law 
repealed  none  of  the  old  statutes,  requiring  attendance 
at  the  services  of  the  church  of  England  and  prohibiting 
other  religious  assemblies,  but  it  stopped  magistrates 
from  applying  them  to  Protestants  who  took  the  oaths 


488  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.  [1689 

of  allegiance  and  supremacy  ;  and  it  allowed  dissenting 
ministers  to  omit  several  of  the  articles  of  the  church  of 
England  from  the  affirmation  of  their  belief.  Catholics, 
it  will  be  seen,  had  no  share  in  the  relief  that  was  given 
by  the  so-called  Toleration  Act.  It  embodied,  in  reality, 
no  principle  of  religious  toleration,  but  could  not  have 
been  passed  if  tolerant  ideas  had  not  gained  ground. 

302.  The  Non-Jurors.  Many  of  the  clergy  were  found 
to  be  still  looking  reverently  upon  James  as  the  lawful 
king,  and  Parliament  thought  it  necessary,  therefore,  to 
require  an  oath  of  fealty  to  King  William  and  Queen 
Mary  from  every  person  holding  office  or  place  in  church 
or  state.  About  400  of  the  clergy,  including  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury  and  six  bishops,  refused  the  oath 
and  were  displaced.  These,  known  as  Non-Jurors,  formed 
a  distinct  body,  which  claimed  to  be  the  true  church  of 
England,  and  they  and  their  successors,  for  more  than  a 
century,  maintained  that  claim. 

303.  The  Revolution  in  Scotland.  Revolutionary 
events  in  Scotland  had  kept  pace  with  those  in  England, 
but  more  disorder  attended  them  and  more  resistance  was 
made.  Many  of  the  clergymen  of  the  Episcopal  church 
were  riotously  driven  ("rabbled,"  as  the  Scotch  termed 
it)  from  their  parishes  at  once,  by  the  long  persecuted 
Covenanters  ;  and  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Scottish 
Estates,  when  called  together,  was  to  abolish  episcopacy 
and  restore  the  Presbyterian  church.  James  was  de- 
clared, not  to  have  abdicated  the  throne,  but  to  have 
forfeited  it,  and  William  and  Mary  were  chosen  to  be 
jointly  king  and  queen. 

Viscount  Dundee,  the  "  bloody  Claverhouse,"  went  into 
the  Highlands,  as  Montrose  had  done  half  a  century 
before,  and  stirred  up  certain  of  the  clans.  A  veteran 
force  sent  against  him,  under  General  Mackay,  was  routed 


1689-1692]     A    CONSTITUTIONAL    MONARCHY.  489 

with  great  slaughter  at  Killiecrankie  (July  27) ;  but  Dun- 
dee fell   in  the   fight,  and   his   Highland  host 
melted  away.    There  was  no  general  submission,  house 
however,  until  two  years  later,  when  the  chiefs  ^^^^^' 
were  offered  pardon  and  a  payment  of  money  if  they 
took  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  William  and  Mary  before 
the  1st  of  January,  1692.     All  accepted  the  terms  and 
were  duly  sworn ;  but  one  among  them,  Macdonald  of 
Glencoe,   mistook  the  official  to  whom   his  submission 
should  be  made,  and  could  not  correct  his  mis-  Massacre 
take  until  the  day  of  grace  was  passed.     He  °^  Glencoe. 
had  powerful  enemies,  who  probably  misrepresented  the 
facts  of  his  delinquency  to  the  king.     By  some  means,  at 
all   events,   they  obtained  authority  to  proceed  against 
Macdonald  and  his  clan  as  rebels,  and  used  this  as  the 
warrant  for  a  treacherous  and  cowardly  deed.     The  Mas- 
sacre of  Glencoe,  in  which  men  and  boys  and  even  women 
were  shot  down  at  midnight,  by  soldiers  whom  they  had 
entertained  for  a  fortnight  as  friends,  is  one  of  the  hor- 
rors of  Scottish  history,  and  a  blot  on  William's  reign. 

304.  The  Orange  Conquest  of  Ireland.  King  James, 
while  he  reigned,  had  undone  the  old  wrong  of  religious 
oppression  in  Irish  government  by  putting  a  new  form 
of  the  same  wrong  in  its  place.  In  other  words,  he  had 
stripped  the  Protestant  Anglo-Irish  population  of  their 
oppressive  power,  and  transferred  it,  without  any  check, 
to  the  Catholic  Celts.  The  latter,  when  the  English 
revolution  occurred,  were  in  full  possession  of  a  formid- 
able army,  filled  the  offices  of  the  Irish  government, 
occupied  the  benches  of  the  courts,  and  controlled  the 
corporations  of  even  the  Protestant  towns.  The  viceroy, 
Richard  Talbot,  Earl  of  Tyrconnel,  who  accomplished 
the  change,  was  a  man  sure  to  give  it  the  worst  possible 
effect. 


490  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.  [1689 

The  Irish  took  arms,  nominally  for  King  James,  but  in 
reality  for  themselves,  making  use  of  a  fair  opportunity 
The  Irish  ^0  break  the  English  yoke.  A  tumultuous  ris- 
rising.  jj^g  occurred,  in  which  almost  the  last  traces 
of  order  in  the  country  disappeared.  Protestant  and 
English  residents  fled  by  thousands  into  England  or 
to  the  districts  in  the  north  where  some  defence  might 
be  made.  Londonderry  and  Enniskillen  became  the 
two  rallying  points  of  such  resistance  as  the  Protestants 
of  Ulster  could  undertake. 

In  March,  1689,  James  arrived  in  Ireland,  with  a  liberal 
equipment  of  ships,  money,  arms,  and  officers  for  his  Irish 
troops,  provided  by  his  friend  and  ally,  the  King  of  France. 
His  aim  was  to  use  Ireland  for  the  recovery  of  England  ; 
James's  ^'^^  ^^^  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  supportcrs  there  was  to  win 
attempt.  independence  for  the  Irish  crown.  The  latter 
carried  things  their  own  way.  They  extorted  the  king's 
consent  to  sweeping  measures  of  confiscation  and  ven- 
geance, which  hardened  English  and  Scottish  hostility 
to  him  and  made  his  return  to  the  lost  British  thrones 
more  than  ever  an  impossible  event. 

In  April,  James  led  a  numerous  army  to  attack  London- 
derry (known  commonly  by  its  older  name  of  Derry), 
which  was  scantily  provisioned  and  poorly  prepared  for 
the  siege  that  its  people  determined  to  endure.  Lundy, 
the  military  governor  of  the  town,  proved  treacherous 
or  faint-hearted,  and  wished  to  surrender ;  two  regiments 
sent  from  England  to  support  him  thought  the  place  could 
not  be  defended,  and  went  back  ;  but  the  stout-hearted 
men  of  Derry  organized  their  own  defence  and  would  not 
Siege  of  gi^^  up.  When  their  store  of  wholesome  food 
^^r^-  Yvas  consumed,  they  ate  the  flesh  and  even  the 
skins  of  horses  and  dogs.  Many  died  of  starvation  and 
of  the  fevers  that  famine  breeds.     For  weeks  they  saw 


1689-1691]    A   CONSTITUTIONAL   MONARCHY.  49I 

in  the  distance  an  idle  fleet  that  King  William  had  sent 
to  their  relief,  but  vvliich  did  not  attempt  to  break  the 
Irish  blockade.  At  last,  on  the  30th  of  July,  one  of  the 
ships  passed  the  boom  which  the  enemy  had  stretched 
across  the  river  Foyle,  and  reached  the  starving  town 
with  a  saving  cargo  of  food.  The  besiegers  then  lost 
hope  of  success  and  marched  away.  At  nearly  the  same 
time  the  Enniskilleners  won  a  decisive  victory  at  Newton 
Butler,  routing  5000  of  their  assailants  with  little  loss  to 
themselves. 

In  August,  William  sent  an  army  to  Ireland  under 
Marshal  Schomberg,  a  French  Protestant  soldier,  and  he 
followed  it  personally  the  next  June  (1690),  with  fresh 
troops.  On  the  ist  of  July  he  fought  the  Irish  and 
French  army  of  James,  near  Drogheda,  and  Battle  of 
won  the  decisive  Battle  of  the  Boyne,  from  ^^^Boyne. 
which  the  defeated  ex-king  fled  back  to  France.  William 
entered  Dublin  and  took  control  of  the  government  ;  but 
Irish  resistance  was  not  fully  overcome  until  the  next 
year. 

305.  The  Violated  Treaty  of  Limerick.  The  war 
was  ended  by  a  treaty,  signed  at  Limerick,  October  30, 
1 69 1,  which  pledged  to  the  Catholic  Irish  a  little  mea- 
sure of  freedom  in  their  religion,  and  promised  to  reward 
their  submission  by  sparing  their  estates.  This  treaty 
was  shamefully  set  at  naught  by  the  Anglo-Irish,  in  their 
Parliament,  as  soon  as  they  had  recovered  power.  It  was 
violated  by  confiscations  and  persecuting  laws,  which, 
says  Mr.  Hallam,  ''  have  scarce  a  parallel  in  European 
history,  unless  it  be  that  of  the  Protestants  of  France 
after  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes."  Stripped 
of  property  on  slight  pretences,  deprived  of  arms,  denied 
the  means  of  education,  excluded  from  office  and  shut 
out  of  many  employments,  ''  the  native  population,"  says 


492  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1690-1691 

Lord  Macaulay,  "  was  tranquil  with  the  ghastly  tranquil- 
lity of  exhaustion  and  despair." 

306.  King  William's  Troubles  in  England.  The 
troubles  of  King  William  were  increasing  in  England, 
where  few  of  the  politicians  of  either  party  gave  him 
an  honest  support.  The  late  Stuarts  had  befouled  the 
whole  government,  including  Parliament,  with  corrup- 
tions which  time,  only,  could  cure,  and,  with  all  his  high 
courage,  he  had  become  so  despairing  in  1690  that  he 
nearly  determined  to  resign  the  crown.  His  absence  in 
Ireland  gave  the  signal  for  activity  among  his  enemies 
in  both  England  and  France.  To  encourage  insurrec- 
tion and  prepare  for  invasion,  a  great  French  fleet,  under 
Count  de  Tourville,  approached  the  English  coast  and 
Beechy  defeated  the  English  admiral.  Lord  Torrington, 
Head.  ^j^^  feebly  commanded  the  united  squadrons  of 

Dutch  and  English  ships,  in  a  battle  fought  off  Beachy 
Head  (June  30,  1690).  But  when  Tourville  attempted 
a  landing  on  the  Devonshire  coast,  the  country  rose  in 
arms  to  repel  him,  showing  plainly  that  the  plots  to  re- 
store James  with  foreign  aid  had  little  popular  support. 

William'^  difliculties  in  England  and  Ireland  were 
weakening  his  hand  in  the  great  European  struggle  with 
Louis  XIV.,  which  he  still  guided  and  inspired.  Louis 
made  head  against  his  opponents  during  these  first  years 
of  William's  English  reign  ;  but  he  did  so  at  a  cost  which 
exhausted  the  resources  of  France,  while  England,  politi- 
cally troubled  as  she  was,  but  with  the  com- 

TliG  struEf- 

giewith  mercial  energies  of  her  people  comparatively 
free,  grew  steadily  in  wealth  and  strength.  In 
America,  where  this  contest  is  sometimes  called  King 
William's  War,  and  sometimes  the  First  Intercolonial 
War,  there  were  attempts  made  to  drive  the  French 
from  Canada,  but  without  success. 


1692] 


A   CONSTITUTIONAL    MONARCHY. 


493 


La  Hogue. 


Louis's  last  undertaking  against  England  was  in  May, 
1692,  when  he  prepared  to  send  James,  with  a  formidable 
French  and  Irish  army  and  a  powerful  fleet,  to  reclaim 
the  throne.  Russell,  the  English  admiral  then 
commanding  in  the  Channel,  had  been  in  trai- 
torous correspondence  with  the  Jacobites,  and  was  ex- 
pected to  betray  his  trust ;  but  when  the  moment  came 
he  was  not  base  enough 
for  the  deed.  He  attacked 
the  French  fleet  near  the 
Bay  of  La  Hogue  and  de- 
stroyed the  greater  part. 

The  treachery  promised 
by  Russell  had  also  been 
promised  by  another  more 
notable  man.  John  Chur- 
chill, Earl  (afterwards 
Duke)  of  Marlborough, 
who  acquired  the  highest 
fame  ever  won  by  an  Eng- 
lish soldier,  and  tarnished 
it  with  displays  of  the 
meanest  character,  was 
then  beginning  the  min- 
gled glory  and  shame  of  his  career.  He  had  deserted 
Tames  under  circumstances  of  peculiar  dishonor,  ^^   , 

•^  ...      Marlbor- 

and  afterwards  offered  service  to  him  as  a  trai-  ough's 
tor  and  spy.      His  perfidy  was  discovered,  and, 
early  in  1692,  he  was  dismissed  from  the  high  offices  and 
commands  that  William  had  trusted  to  him. 

307.  Beginning  of  Party  Ministerial  Government. 
As  .1  '^onsequence  of  the  Revolution,  Parliament,  or,  strictly 
speaking,  the  House  of  Commons,  had  gained  power  to 
control  the  executive  government  in  most  branches  of 


JOHN    CHURCHILL,   DUKE    OF   MARL- 
BOROUGH. 


treachery. 


494  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1694-1697 

affairs.  Practically,  therefore,  government  had  become 
impossible  without  agreement  between  the  administra- 
tion and  a  majority  of  the  popular  House  ;  and,  since 
political  parties  were  now  distinctly  formed,  it  followed 
that  the  party  which  had  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons must  also  hold  the  chief  ministerial  offices,  if  the 
administration  of  government  was  to  be  smoothly  carried 
on.  This  was  a  new  situation,  existing  nowhere  else  in 
the  world,  and  it  was  not  understood  for  some  years. 
The  first  experiment  with  a  party  ministry,  made  up  to 
be  in  agreement  with  the  majority  in  Parliament,  was 
tried  by  William  in  1695. 

Of  the  Whigs  then  brought  into  office,  four  leading 

statesmen,  the  ablest   among  whom  was  Lord  Somers, 

became   the    special    counsellors    of    the    kins:. 

The  Junto. 

They  were  known  as  the  Junto,  and  they  re- 
sembled the  English  Cabinet  of  later  times  much  more 
than  the  Cabal  of  Charles  H.  had  done  ;  but  a  perfected 
Ministry,  united  in  responsibility,  taking  office  and  quit- 
ting office  together,  was  yet  to  come. 

308.  Death  of  Queen  Mary.  Late  in  December,  1694, 
Queen  Mary  died,  and  her  death  was  a  grievous  public 
loss,  as  well  as  a  crushing  affliction  to  the  king.  He 
was  supported  no  longer  by  the  loyal  affection  that  she 
had  inspired,  and  which  he  could  not  win.  England  was 
heavily  burdened  by  the  war,  and  disheartened  by  what 
seemed  to  be  want  of  success.  Yet  success,  as  William 
saw,  was  being  surely  attained,  in  the  wearing  out  of  the 
strength  of  France,  and  he  was  able  to  hold  his  unwilling 
Peace  of  subjects  and  allies  to  the  task  until  Louis  XIV. 
Ryswick.  humbled  himself  to  the  acceptance  of  terms,  in 
the  peace-treaty  of  Ryswick  (October,  1697),  which  took 
from  him  all  his  conquests,  except  Alsace,  and  acknow- 
ledged William  to  be  the  rightful  English  king. 


1697-1698]     A    CONSTITUTIONAL    MONARCHY.  495 

To  keep  the  peace  thus  gained,  it  was  necessary  that 
the  alHance  which  WilHam  had  created  should  still  face 
the  King  of  France,  armed  and  ready ;  for  the  question 
of  the  Spanish  Succession  (see  page  478)  was 

The  Span- 

looming  up.      But   Parliament,  listenmg  to  no  ishSucces- 
argument,  cut  the  army  down  at  once,  and  the 
king  was  left  without  power  to  obstruct  the  new  designs 
of  France. 

309.  The  Act  of  Settlement.  Elections  in  1698  gave 
the  Tories  a  great  majority  in  Parliament,  which  soon 
forced  the  surrender  of  the  government  to  a  ministry 
that  was  hostile  to  the  whole  policy  of  the  king.  Yet 
this  same  Tory  Parliament  and  ministry  were  so  free 
from  Jacobitism  that  they  framed  and  passed  an  act 
which  positively  barred  the  return  of  James  or  his  de- 
scendants to  the  throne.  William  and  Mary  were  child- 
less, and  the  last  of  the  children  of  Mary's  sister,  Anne, 
had  recently  died.  Aside  from  James  II.  and  his  son, 
there  was  a  daughter  of  James's  sister,  Henrietta,  and 
there  were  several  children  of  Elizabeth  (called  Queen 
of  Bohemia),  the  daughter  of  James  I.,  for  whom  the 
crown  might  be  claimed.  Of  these,  only  one, 
Sophia,  Electress  of  Hanover,  had  remained  in  Eiectress 
the  Protestant  faith,  and  to  her  and  her  descend- 
ants, for  that  reason,  the  Act  of  Settlement  appointed 
the  regal  succession  after  Anne.  It  enacted,  further, 
that  every  future  English  sovereign  must  join  the  church 
of  England,  and  it  added  important  provisions  to  those 
contained  in  the  Bill  of  Rights,  for  limiting  the  power  of 
the  sovereign  ;  while  it  imposed,  for  the  first  time,  a  dis- 
tinct responsibility  on  the  ministers  and  advisers  of  the 
crown.  This  was  the  last  of  the  great  statutes  by  which 
the  English  monarchy  is  constitutionally  limited  and  de- 
fined. Its  passage  by  a  Tory  Parliament  shows  the 
advance  in  political  ideas  that  had  been  going  on. 


496  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1701-1702 

310.  Opening  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession 
and  Death  of  William  III.  The  passage  of  the  Act  of 
Settlement  was  soon  followed  by  the  death  of  James  II. 
(September,  1701).  On  that  event,  the  son  of  James  was 
defiantly  recognized  as  King  of  England  by  Louis  XIV., 
and  assumed  the  title  of  James  III.  English  feeling 
resented  this  offensive  action  in  France,  and  became 
instantly  ready  for  war.  A  new  ParUament  was  called 
and  the  Whigs  returned  to  power. 

But  King  William,  always  feeble  and  suffering  in  body, 

was  now  a  nearly  dying  man,  unable  to  take  the  field,  and 

Marlborough,  forgiven  his  treacheries,  was  trusted  with 

the  command  of  forces  sent  to  the  help  of  the  Dutch. 

Just  as  hostilities  were  beginning,  an  accident 

William       hastened  William's  death.      The  stumbling  of 
III  .   .  . 

his  horse  gave  him  a  shock  and  an  injury  which 

his  weakened  frame  could  not  bear.     He  died  on  the  8th 

of  March,  1702. 

311.  Important  Measures  of  William's  Reign.  Be- 
sides the  great  constitutional  measures  that  have  been 
described,  the  reign  of  William  and  Mary  was  marked  by 
several  important  acts.  By  one  bill  (called  the  Second 
Triennial  Bill)  the  duration  of  every  Parliament  was 
limited  to  three  years  ;  by  another,  trials  for  treason 
were  regulated,  for  the  protection  of  the  accused  ;  by 

the  defeat  of  a  third  bill,  the  licensing  and  cen- 

Freedom  ....  .  .         °  . 

of  the  sorship  or  the  press  was   brought  to  an   end. 

pr6ss* 

The  Bank  of  England  was  founded  in  1694, 
when  the  permanent  national  debt  of  England  had  just 
begun  its  enormous  growth. 

312.  Queen  Anne  and  her  Reign.  Anne  was  seated 
on  the  throne  without  open  dispute,  and,  in  the  series  of 
strangely  fortunate  happenings  which  helped  the  English 
people  to  take  all  real  sovereignty  from  the  crowned  head 


1702-1714]      A   CONSTITUTIONAL   MONARCHY. 


497 


of  their  government,  and  to  establish  it  in  their  represent- 
ative House  of  Commons,  her  reign  has  a  quietly  impor- 
tant place.  Having  not  much  force  in  character  or  mind, 
she  was  easily  pushed  into  the  background  of  English 
politics,  where  kings  and  queens  (with  one  exception, 
that  we  shall  find  in  George  HI.),  have  since  remained. 
The  crowned  heads  have  been  conspicuous  hitherto,  in 
the  front  of  everything  political  that  we  have  had  to  re- 
late, and  the  story  has  been  little  more  than  one  of  a  long 
struggle  to  keep  their  pretensions  in  check  ;  but  now, 
from  this  point,  they  count  for  little,  as  a  rule,  in  Eng- 
lish political  history.  Its  conflicts  hereafter  are  between 
parties  among  the  peo- 
ple themselves ;  its  is- 
sues are  between  their 
differing  interests  and 
views ;  its  important 
actors  are  uncrowned. 

313.  The  Epoch  of 
Political  Parties.  Un- 
til the  time  of  the 
Stuarts,  the  only  wide- 
spread opinions  or  feel- 
ings that  had  force 
enough  to  cause  large 
divisions  of  party  were 
such  as  sprang  from 
differences  of  religion 
or  church.  Under  the 
Stuarts,  a  strong  mix- 
ture   of    political    with 

religious  disagreements  began  to  appear ;  but,  still,  the 
animating  oppositions,  even  through  the  Civil  War  and 
after  it,  almost  to  the  final  revolution,  were  religious  ; 


QUEEN   ANNE. 


498  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1702-1714 

political  issues  had  a  secondary  place.  It  was  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  II.,  as  we  have  seen,  that  a  distinctly- 
political  spirit  began  to  show  itself,  in  the  rise  of  two 
opposing  parties,  Whig  and  Tory,  which  represented 
mainly  a  division  between  minds  that  were  open  to  new 
ideas  on  public  questions  and  minds  that  were  not.  In 
Queen  Anne's  time,  the  shaping  of  those  parties,  and  the 
exciting  of  political  action  as  a  matter  of  contest  between 
them,  became  a  very  notable  fact. 

For  the  most  part,  the  commercial  and  industrial 
classes  in  the  towns,  and  the  Nonconformists  generally, 
were  Whigs  ;  and  so  many  of  the  nobles  inclined  to  Whig 
views  that  the  party  commanded,  on  most  questions,  a 
Whigs  and  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords.  On  the  Tory 
Tories.  gj^g^  ^y[^Yi  few  exceptions,  were  the  "  gentry  " 
class  of  landowners,  often  spoken  of  as  "the  squires," 
and  the  clergy  of  the  established  church.  The  weight 
of  numbers  was  commonly  with  the  Tories,  and  the 
queen's  feelings  were  strongly  in  their  favor  ;  but  cir- 
cumstances and  superior  intelligence  gave  more  control 
over  the  course  of  events  to  the  Whigs. 

314.  Literature  and  Politics.  The  literature  of  Queen 
Anne's  time  and  of  the  following  reign  gives  remarkable 
evidence  of*  the  wakening  of  the  English  mind  to  an 
intellectual  interest  in  pubhc  affairs.  At  no  other  time 
has  so  high  an  order  of  literary  genius  been  enlisted  in 
party  warfare ;  and  never  have  such  masterpieces  of 
literary  art  been  produced  in  party  disputes  as  were  con- 
tributed then  to  enduring  literature  by  Swift,  Addison, 
Steele,  Defoe,  Arbuthnot,  and  Gay.  The  same  cause, 
more  than  any  other,  gave  rise  to  the  famous  London 
coffee-houses  of  that  day,  as  lively  centres  of  news-telling 
and  conversation  ;  and  the  talk  of  the  coffee-house  gave 
its  quality  and  tone  to  the  Addisonian  essay,  which  was 
the  exquisite  literary  creation  of  the  age. 


1702-1714]     A   CONSTITUTIONAL    MONARCHY. 


499 


LONDON    COFFEE-HOUSE    IN    THE    REIGN    OF   ANNE. 


315.  Marlborough  and  the  War.  When  Anne  came 
to  the  throne,  and  for  some  years  after,  she  was  under 
the  mfluence  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  through  his 
wife,  to  whom  she  was  passionately  attached.  This  gave 
the  whole  influence  of  the  crown  to  the  support  of  the 
war  with  France  (which  extended  to  America  and  was 
there  called  "Queen  Anne's,"  or  the  "Second  Intercolo- 
nial War"),  though  the  Tories,  who  claimed  both  Marlbor- 


500  ARISTOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT.       [1704-1709 

ough  and  the  queen  for  their  party,  were  eager  to  bring 
it  to  an  end.  The  Whigs,  adhering  to  the  foreign  pohcy 
of  the  late  King  WilUam,  were  ardently  for  the  war,  and 
Marlborough,  agreeing  with  them  in  this,  was  gradually 
drawn  to  their  side,  carrying  with  him  Lord  Godolphin, 
an  able  Tory  minister  of  finance.  The  marvellous  mili- 
Bienheim,  tary  succcsscs  of  the  duke,  who  never  lost  a 
and^^^^^^'  battle,  —  his  intoxicating  victories  at  Blenheim, 
Gudenarde.  Ramillics,  and  Oudenarde,  —  popularized  the 
war,  brought  the  Whigs  back  to  power,  and  forced 
the  queen,  against  her  will,  to  give  the  ministry  into 
their  hands  (i  704-1 708).  This  ended  the  friendship  be- 
tween Oueen  Anne  and  the  Duchess  of  Marlborouo^h, 
which  the  latter  had  been  wearing  out  by  her  arrogant 
use  of  it  in  the  interest  of  the  duke.  A  new  favorite, 
Mrs.  Masham,  whom  the  Tories  controlled,  obtained  in- 
fluence over  the  queen. 

316.  The  Union  with  Scotland.  If  the  Whigs  could 
claim  the  glory  of  the  war,  the  Tory  ministry  might  boast 
that  the  greatest  achievement  of  peaceful  statesmanship 
in  Anne's  reign  was  accomplished  by  their  hands.  The 
union  of  Scotland  and  England  in  one  kingdom,  with 
one  Parliament  and  one  crown,  so  long  seen  to  be  neces- 
sary for  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  both,  but  resisted 
so  long  by  paltry  jealousies  on  each  side,  was  brought 
about  in  1707,  and  the  two  realms  were  merged  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Great  Britain,  so  styled  from  that  time. 

317.  Toryism  in  the  Church.  The  Tories  were  at  a 
disadvantage  on  the  questions  of  the  war ;  but  they  had 
the  influence  of  the  church  on  their  side,  and  it  was  able 
to  revive  issues  that  had  seemed  to  be  dead.  It  attacked 
the  dissenters  with  fresh  intolerance,  and  it  began  a  re- 
newed preaching  of  the  servile  doctrine  of  non-resistance 
to  kings.     In  1709,  after  the  Whigs  had  regained  power. 


1709-1713]     A   CONSTITUTIONAL   MONARCHY. 


501 


one  Dr.  Sacheverell  stirred  great  excitement  on  this  sub- 
ject by  a  Jacobite  sermon  in  St.  Paul's  cathe- 
dral, which  the  ministers  of  the  day  were  un-  slche° 
wise  enough  to  make  important  by  bringing  the  ^^'^^^^ 
preacher  to  a  solemn  trial  before  the  House  of  Lords. 
The  clergy  rallied  to    his  defence,  and  their  influence 


ENGLISH   FLAG. 


UNION    FLAG. 


SCOTTISH    FLAG. 


raised  a  storm  which  swept  away  the  Whigs,  to  the  de- 
light of  Queen  Anne. 

318.  The  Treaty  of  Utrecht.  The  nation  grew  weary 
of  the  war,  and  that  feeling  helped  the  overthrow  of 
the  Whigs.  The  Tories,  led  by  Robert  Harley,  Earl 
of  Oxford,  and  Henry  St.  John,  Viscount  Bolingbroke, 
took  control  of  the  government,  the  queen  creating  new 
peers  to  give  them  a  majority  in  the  House  of  Lords. 
In  1 71 3,  they  brought  the  war  to  an  end,  by  a  treaty 
(the  Peace  of  Utrecht)  which  was  bitterly  denounced  by 
the  Whigs,  as  being  treacherous  to  the  allies  of  England 
and  false  to  herself.  This  famous  treaty  added,  however, 
some  important  possessions  to  the  rising  British  empire, 
including:  Gibraltar  and  Minorca  in  the  Mediterranean, 
Acadia  (which  the  English  had  named  Nova  Scotia) 
and   the  whole  of    Newfoundland,   with    Hudson's  Bay 


502 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1713-1714 


and  Straits,  in  America  ;  and  it  gave  to  Englishmen 
a  shameful  monopoly  of  slave  trading  with  the  American 
colonies  of  Spain. 

England  came  out  of  the  war  with  immense  prestige, 
Position  of  having  taken  a  rank  not  recognized  before  in 
England.  European  eyes.  She  had  risen  to  a  supremacy 
in  naval  power  that  she  never  lost ;  she  had  demonstrated 
a  military  capacity  equal  to  France  ;  she  had  given  proofs 
of  a  wealth  that  could  bear  almost  any  strain. 

319.  The  Death  of  Queen  Anne.  Signs  of  breaking 
health  in  the  queen  were  warning  both  parties  to  prepare 
for  a  change  on  the  throne*     The  prospect  was  welcome 


HACKNEY    COACH    IN    THE    REIGN    OF   ANNE. 


to  the  Whigs,  but  it  caused  among  the  Tories  great  con- 
fusion and  doubt.  The  latter  had  passed  the  act  which 
would  carry  the  crown  to  the  Hanoverian  House,  but 
they  were  dissatisfied  with  their  work.  The  Electress 
Sophia  was  dead ;  her  rights  had  passed  to  her  son 
George,  Elector  and  Duke  of  Hanover  and  Brunswick- 
Luneburg,  whose  confidence,  there  was  reason  to  believe, 
had  already  been  won  by  the  Whigs.  If  the  Pretender 
in  France,  who  styled  himself  James  III.,  had  consented 
to  renounce  the  Catholic  faith,  it  seems  probable  that  the 
Tory  party  would  have  taken  up  his  cause  and  brought 


I7I4]  A   CONSTITUTIONAL   MONARCHY.  503 

him  in  on  the  death  of  Anne.  Even  when  he  refused, 
there  was  a  section  of  the  party,  led  by  Bohngbroke, 
that  laid  plans  in  his  behalf,  from  which  nothing  could 
possibly  come.  The  hopeless  division  of  the  Tories 
made  it  easy  for  the  Whigs,  when  Anne  died  suddenly, 
in  August,  1 714,  to  guard  the  throne  for  George  I.  until 
he  arrived  to  take  possession,  in  the  following  month. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

296.  Filling  the  Vacant  Throne. 
Topics. 

1.  Effect  of  James's  flight  upon  his  deposition. 

2.  The  proclamation  of  William  and  Mary  as  joint  rulers. 
References.  —  Bright,    iii.    785-789.     Character   of   William : 

Green,  675-677 ;  Guest,  499,  500;  Montague,  156;  Traill,  Wil- 
Ham  III.,  ch.  i. ;  Macaulay,  ii.  126-134. 
Research  Questions.  — (i.)  Why  did  England  appeal  to  Wil- 
liam rather  than  to  any  other  European  sovereign  ?  (2.)  How 
did  kings,  on  gaining  power,  usually  act  toward  the  leaders  of 
the  opposite  party  ?  (3.)  What  was  William's  course  in  this  re- 
spect? (4.)  Who  had  made  himself  obnoxious  to  the  people  in 
James's  reign  ?  (5.)  How  did  the  people  take  revenge  ?  (Guest, 
499,  500.) 

297.  The  Declaration  of  Rights  and  the  Bill  of  Rights. 

Topics. 

1.  Action  of  Parliament. 

2.  Content  of  the  Bill  of  Rights. 

3.  Settlement  of  the  Succession. 

References.  —  Bright,  iii.  806;  Green,  683  ;  Ransome,  191-196; 

Montague,  146-148;  Traill,  William  III.,  54,  55;  Taswell-Lang- 

mead,  654-661. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)    To  whom  was  the  control  of  the 

army  transferred  ?     (2.)  What  dangers  did  this  tend  to  avoid  ? 

298.  The  Deeper  Effects  of  the  Revolution. 
Topic. 

I.  Death  of  the  old  feeling  of  the  divine  rights  of  kings. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  806,  807. 


504  A    CONSTITUTIONAL   MONARCHY. 

299.  The  Tory  Reaction.  —  The  Jacobites. 

Topics. 

1.  William's  character  and  causes  of  opposition  to  him. 

2.  James's  unsatisfactory  attitude. 
Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  158,  159. 

300.  The  Mutiny  Act. 

Topics. 

1.  Mutiny  in  the  army  and  changes  in  discipline. 

2.  Yearly  grant  to  the  crown  of  power  to  control  an  army. 
Reference. —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  162,  163. 

Research  Questions. —  (i.)  What  is  meant  by  martial  law.-* 
(2.)  What  is  a  court-martial  ?  (3.)  Why  is  the  trial  of  soldiers 
for  their  offences  necessarily  different  from  that  of  civihans.^ 

301.  The  Toleration  Act. 
Topics. 

1.  The  new  Act  of  Toleration. 

2.  The  exclusion  of  Catholics. 
Reference.  —  Montague,  150-152. 

302.  The  Non-Jurors. 

Topic. 

I.  Oath  of  fealty  and  displacement  of  non-jurors. 
Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  159,  160. 

303.  The  Revolution  in  Scotland. 

Topics. 

1.  Episcopacy  abolished  and  William  and  Mary  proclaimed. 

2.  Battle  of  KiUiecrankie. 

3.  Submission  of  Highlanders  and  Massacre  of  Glencoe. 
Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  152-154. 

304.   The  Orange  Conquest  of  Ireland. 

Topics. 

1.  Catholics  restored  to  power  by  James. 

2.  Rising  for  James  and  his  arrival  in  Ireland. 

3.  James  a  helpless  tool  in  the  hands  of  his  supporters. 

4.  Siege  of  Londonderry  and  victory  of  the  Enniskilleners  , 

5.  Battle  of  the  Boyne. 

Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  168-186. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.      505 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  was  the  real  design  of  the 
uprising  in  Ireland?  (Bright,  iii,  812.)  (2.)  What  people  took 
over  the  lands  of  Ulster  at  the  Cromwellian  settlement  ?  (3.) 
Who  settled  most  of  Leinster  and  Minister?  (4.)  What  name 
was  given  William's  followers  in  Ireland,  from  the  name  of  his 
house  ? 

305.  The  Violated  Treaty  of  Limerick. 

Topics. 

1.  Content  of  the  treaty. 

2.  Action  of  the  Anglo-Irish  Parliament. 
Reference.  —  Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  197,  198. 

306.  King  William's  Troubles  in  England. 

Topics. 

1.  Corruption  in  the  government  and  despair  of  William. 

2.  Repulse  of  the  French  invasion. 

3.  Louis's  success  on  the  continent. 

4.  Second  attempt  at  French  invasion  and  its  defeat. 

5.  Treachery  of   Marlborough. 
Referen'CE.  —  Green,  694-696. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  W^hat  other  means  than  open  war 
did  James  employ  to  regain  his  throne  ?  (Hale,  Fall  of  the 
Stuarts,  235,  236.  (2.)  To  what  measure  for  the  protection  of 
William  did  this  lead  ?  (3.)  What  was  there  in  William's  early 
history  to  account  for  his  persistent  opposition  to  Louis  XIV. 
of  France?     (Traill,  William  III.,  ch.  ii.) 

307.  Beginning  of  Party  Ministerial  Government. 

Topics. 

1.  Gain  in  parliamentary  power. 

2.  First  trial  of  party  ministry  and  the  Junto. 
References.  —  Green,  696-699.      The    ministry:     Gardiner,   iii. 

687,  688;   Ransome,  200,  201  ;  Montague,  166,  167;  Traill,  Wil- 
liam III.,  ch.  xi.;    Macaulay,  iv.  348-357;    Taswell-Langmead, 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  What  principle  of  the  kingship  was 
settled  forever  by  the  seating  of  William  and  Mary  on  the  throne  ? 
(2.)  In  the  new  idea  of  government  which  came  in  with  William, 
what  part  was  assigned  to  the  king?  (Bright,  iii.  808.)  (3.) 
What  weight  did  he  attach  to  party  considerations?    (4.)  What 


506  A    CONSTITUTIONAL   GOVERNMENT. 

was  the  result  of  this  variance  between  king  and  the   Parlia- 
ment?    (Bright,  iii.  809.) 

308.  Death  of  Queen  Mary. 

Topics. 

1.  Effect  of   her  death. 

2.  Peace  of  Ryswick. 

3.  Mistake  of  Parliament  in  disbanding  arm3\ 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  844-860. 

Research  Question.  —  (i.)  How  did  the  people  receive  the 
news  of  the  Peace  of  Ryswick  and  what  objects  did  William 
attain  by  it  ?    (Bright,  iii.  859.)  • 

309.  The  Act  of  Settlement. 
Topics. 

1.  Hostility  of  the  Tories  toward  James. 

2.  Possible  heirs  to  the  throne. 

3.  Choice  of  Electress  Sophia. 

4.  Safeguards  provided  by  Act  of  Settlement. 
Reference.  —  Montague,  153-156. 

310.  Opening  of  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession 

and  Death  of  WiUiam  III. 

Topics. 

1.  Death  of  James  II.  and  recognition  of  James  III.  by  Louio. 

2.  Preparation  for  war  and  death  of  William. 
References.  —  Bright,  iii.  862-874.     The  Grand  Alliance  :    Gar- 
diner,  iii.  675 ;  Bright,  iii.  873 ;  Green,  703  ;    Morris,   Age   of 
Anne,  33-41. 

311.  Important  Measures  of  William's  Reign. 

Topic. 

I.  Three  important  acts  passed  during  his  reign. 

References. —  Bank  of  England:  Gardiner,  iii.  660:  Bright,  iii. 
843,844;  Green,  699;  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  148-153,  161  ; 
Macaulay,  iv.  392-403,555-561. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  was  the  condition  of  the  press 
at  this  time  ?  (Guest,  505,  506.)  (2.)  In  view  of  William's  wars, 
were  the  taxes  likely  to  be  sufficient  to  pay  the  bills  of  the  gov- 
ernment ?  (3.)  What  did  the  government  do  to  get  money  ? 
(4.)  How  did  this  get  the  name  of  the  funded  debt  ?    (Traill,  iv. 


TOPICS,  REFERENCES,  AND   QUESTIONS.      507 

522.)  (5.)  Where  did  the  EngHsh  get  the  idea  of  the  bank,  and 
how  did  it  affect  trade  ?  (Traill,  iv.  524.)  (6.)  What  was  the  state 
of  the  coinage  under  William  ?  (Hale,  Fall  of  the  Stuarts,  233.) 
(7.)  While  the  money  was  being  called  in  for  recoinage,  what 
difficulty  was  there  in  transacting  business  ?  (8.)  How  did  the 
bank  help  the  government  at  this  crisis  ?  (Bright,  iii.  850.) 
(9.)  By  what  measure  did  the  government  help  itself?  (Bright, 
iii.  851.)  (10.)  Was  there  any  security  for  these  Exchequer 
Bills  except  the  faith  of  the  government?  (11.)  What  is  such 
a  debt  called?  (12.)  What  part  of  our  currency  constitutes  a 
similar  debt  ? 

312.  Queen  Anne  and  her  Reign. 
Topics. 

1.  Effect  of  her  character  in  the  growth  of  parliamentary  power. 

2.  Position  of  the  crown  henceforth. 
Reference.  —  Ransome,  207-209. 

313.  The  Epoch  of  Political  Parties. 
Topics. 

1.  Early  prevalence  of  religious  differences. 

2.  Rise  of  political  differences  and  the  division  of  parties. 
Reference. —  Morris,  Age  of  Anne,  120-131. 

314.  Literature  and  Politics. 

Topics. 

1.  Political  writers. 

2.  Coffee-houses. 

Reference.  —  Morris,  Age  of  Anne,  211-241. 

315.  Marlborough  and  the  War. 
Topics. 

1.  His  influence  at  court. 

2.  Pohcy  of  the  Whigs. 

3.  Blenheim,  Ramillies,  and  Oudenarde. 

References.  —  Morris,  Age  of  Anne,  42-118,  132-137;  Colby, 
226,  227. 

Research  Questions. —  (i.)  What  famous  stronghold  in  Spain 
did  the  English  obtain  by  this  war?  (Guest,  511.)  (2.)  Bring 
into  class  and  read  Southey's  poem  relating  to  Blenheim. 


508  A    CONSTITUTIONAL    GOVERNMENT. 

316.  The  Union  with  Scotland. 

Topic. 

I.  Work  of  the  Tories. 
References. — Gardiner,  iii.  685  ;  Bright,  iii.  924-928  ;  Green,  714, 

715  ;  Morris,  Age  of  Anne,  145-153  ;  Colby,  227-229  ;  Montague, 

158-161. 

317.  Toryism  in  the  Church. 
Topics. 

1.  Attempt  to  revive  dead  issue. 

2.  Trial  of  Dr.  Sacheverell. 
Reference.  —  Morris,  Age  of  Anne,  ch.  xiii. 

318.  The  Treaty  of  Utrecht. 
Topics. 

1.  Tory  control  and  end  of  the  war. 

2.  Possessions  added  by  the  treaty. 

3.  Prestige  of  England. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  696,  697 ;  Bright,  iii.  921 ;  Green, 
719;  Morris,  Age  of  Anne,  ch.  xv.  ;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  456,  457. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Prove  from  the  terms  of  the  treaty 
of  Utrecht  that  this  was  a  trade  war.  (2.)  How  does  the  con- 
cession of  the  slave  trade  to  England  indicate  that  the  old  the- 
ory of  colonial  trade  still  held.?  (3.)  In  what  quarter  beside 
America  was  French  trade  beginning  to  clash  with  English  trade  ? 
(4.)  What  doctrine  of  European  poHtics  did  the  treaty  of  Utrecht 
plainly  enunciate?     (Green,  721.) 

319.  The  Death  of  Queen  Anne. 
Topics. 

1.  Dissatisfaction  of  Tories  with  the  Act  of  Settlement. 

2.  Death  of  Anne  and  accession  of  George  I. 
References  —  Morris,  Age  of  Anne,  ch,  xviii.     Irish  penal  legis- 
lation: Gardiner,  iii.  686;   Lecky,   i.  301-328,  ii.  241,  265-315. 
John   Locke:  Gardiner,  iii.  652;  Bright,    iii.  849;    Green,  615; 
Traill,  iv.  563-565. 

Research  Question.  —  fi.)  In  what  famous  novel  of  Thackeray 
are  the  times  and  manners  of  Queen  Anne  portrayed? 


CHAPTER   XXI. 


THE    ESTABLISHING    OF    MINISTERIAL    GOVERNMENT. 


Hanoverian  Kings  :  George  I.  —  George  H.     1714-1742. 

320.  George  I.  Once  more,  reverence  for  royalty 
was  lowered  in  English  minds  by  a  change  of  family 
on  the  throne,  and  so  much  that  it  has  had  no  seri- 
ous political  influence  since.  The  effect  went  far  to- 
wards making  the 
crowned  head  of 
the  government  a 
merely  convenient 
figure,  such  as  it  is 
at  the  present  day. 

The     new    king 


was    more    foreign 


and  more  a  stranger 
than  William  of 
Orange  had  been, 
and  of  William's 
ability  he  had  none. 
He  knew  nothing 
of  England ;  he  had 
not  even  learned 
its  language  ;  he 
only  comprehended  that  the  Whigs  were  bound  by  their 
own  interests  to  stand  by  him,  and  he  put  himself  help- 
lessly into  their  hands.     He  was  unable  to  take  part  in 


GEORGE   I. 


5IO  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1714  1716 

the  council  of  his  ministers,  and  never  ventured  to  refuse 
his    assent   to    an    act    which    Parliament    had 
nessofthe   passcd.    By  mere  incapacity,  he  set  an  example 
^"^'  in  these  two  particulars  which  became  a  rule 

for  his  successors  ;  and  nothing,  in  the  strange  moulding 
of  the  British  constitution,  has  done  more  to  bring  about 
a  practical  shifting  of  the  whole  responsibility  of  govern- 
ment from  the  wearers  of  the  crown  to  the  ministers 
who  act  in  their  name. 

321.  Tories  and  Jacobites.  The  power  gained  by 
the  Whigs  on  the  accession  of  George  I.  was  held  with- 
out break  for  a  generation.  The  Tory  party  was  sunk 
into  a  state  of  sour  discontent,  which  vented  itself  in  a 
a  good  deal  of  sentimental  Jacobite  talk,  but  which, 
among  Englishmen,  had  not  much  rebellious  intent.  In 
Scotland,  where  a  great  deal  of  bitterness  against  the 
union  with  England  prevailed,  there  was  enough  Jacobite 
Jacobite  ardor  to  encourage  a  rising  for  the  Pretender, 
rebellion,  [n  lyiS-  A  few  English  Jacobites,  in  Northum- 
berland, attempted  to  support  the  Scottish  movement, 
but  it  was  feebly  done.  A  battle  at  Sheriffmuir,  in  Scot- 
land, ended  the  undertaking,  and  the  Pretender,  arriving 
on  the  scene  too  late  for  any  service,  was  glad  to  escape 
back  to  France. 

322.  Parliament  and  the  Whigs.  The  Whigs  had 
a  great  majority  in  the  first  Parliament  elected  under 
George  I.,  but  the  king  and  his  German  court  were  soon 
so  unpopular  in  the  country  that  they  feared  to  face  a 
new  election  at  the  end  of  three  years,  as  required  by 

the  Triennial  Act.  They  evaded  the  danger  by 
?ennfai^'  a  vcry  bad  piece  of  legislation,  known  as  the 
^^^'  Septennial   Act    (1716),    in   which    Parliament 

prolonged  its  own  term,  and  the  term  of  succeeding 
parliaments,  to  seven  years. 


1715-1720]  MINISTERIAL   GOVERNMENT.  511 

323.  Foreign  Relations.  The  death  of  Louis  XIV. 
of  France,  in  171 5,  brought  about  a  great  change  in  the 
situation  of  affairs  abroad,  with  the  effect  of  drawing 
France,  England,  and  Holland  together,  in  an  alliance 
against  Spain.  They  were  afterwards  joined  by  Austria, 
and  a  short  war,  in  which  England  took  part  with  her 
fleet,  defeated  Spanish  attempts  to  break  the  arrange- 
ments of  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  and  secured  peace  for 
a  number  of  years.  Disagreements  between  King  George 
and  some  of  his  ministers  arose  out  of  these  events. 
The  king  wished  to  use  England  in  selfish  schemes  for 
enlarging  and  strengthening  his  Hanoverian  dominions, 
and  several  ministers  who  opposed  him  resigned  gij.  Robert 
(17 1 7).  One  of  these  was  Sir  Robert  Walpole,  w^ipoie. 
who  had  been  first  lord  of  the  treasury  and  chancel- 
lor of  the  exchequer  for  two  years.  In  1720  Sir  Robert 
returned  to  office,  and  then  entered  on  a  notable  career. 

324.  The  South  Sea  Bubble.  When  Walpole  was  re- 
called, the  country  was  on  the  eve  of  a  ruinous  disaster 
which  the  ministers  had  helped  to  bring  about.  They 
had  given  encouragement  to  a  frenzy  of  speculation, 
which  raged  in  both  England  and  France.  Started  in 
France,  by  a  vast  mad  project  known  as  ''The  Mississippi 
Scheme,"  it  had  spread  to  England,  and  produced  there 
one  equally  mad.  A  ''South  Sea  Company,"  chartered 
some  years  before,  with  special  privileges  of  trade  in 
Spanish  America,  made  some  kind  of  delusive  bargain 
with  the  English  government,  in  17 19,  for  paying  off  the 
national  debt.  The  scheme  rested  on  wild  ideas  of  the 
trade  which  the  company  would  control,  and  those  ideas, 
encouraged  by  the  government,  fired  a  craze  of  excite- 
ment in  the  public  mind.  Everybody  became  eager  to 
get  shares  in  the  company,  at  any  price,  no  matter  what. 
Before  the  end  of  June,  1720,  buyers  were  paying  more 


512 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1720-1742 


fe:^W 


than  ten  times  the  nominal  value  of  the  stock.  At  the 
same  time,  fraud  and  folly  were  floating  a  thousand 
other  senseless  projects  in  the  market,  and  people  of  all 
classes  ran  after  them  in  mobs,  with  money  in  their 
hands  —  small  savings  and  large  fortunes  alike — to  be 
thrown  away.  In  September  the  waking  from  this 
strange  delirium  came,  with  an  awful  shock,  which  burst 
the  air-blown  bubbles  of  speculation,  and  spread  ruin 
and  wretchedness  over  the  land. 

325.  Walpole,  Prime  Minister.  Walpole  had  opposed 
the  dealings  of  the  government  with  the  South  Sea  Com- 
pany ;  he  had  written  and  spoken  with  sound  sense  on 

the  subject,  and  now  men  turned  to 
him  for  help  from  the  trouble  into 
which  the  country  had  been  plunged. 
A  new  ministry  was  formed,  in  which 
he  became  distinctly  the  head,  and 
he  held  that  position  for  more  than 
twenty  years.  Since  a  ministry  ex- 
isted, there  had  usually  been  one 
man  who  was  recognized  as  holding 
the  chief  place,  but  never  in  the 
sense  in  which  Walpole  now  took 
that  place.  Each  minister  had  for- 
merly acted  in  his  own  of^ce  with  a 
certain  independence  of  power ;  but 
Walpole  established  an  authority 
over  his  colleagues  which  gave  him  the  general  direction 
of  public  affairs. 

He  was  too  jealous  a  chief,  and  the  effect  of  his  con- 
duct was  to  drive  men  of  spirit  and  talent  from  the 
government  ;  but  he  practically  created  the  Prime  Min- 
istry and  the  Cabinet  of  England  —  the  office  of  that 
great   minister  who  stands   almost  in  the   place   of  the 


J 


COSTUME    OF    A    GENTLE' 
MAN    IN    1721. 


1720-1742]  MINISTERIAL   GOVERNMENT. 


513 


sovereign,  as  the  real  and  responsible  executive  of  gov- 
ernment, and  the  united  council  of  associated 
ministers  by  whom  the  prime  minister  is  served  English 

,       T    .       I         T  T      ^    r     I  1-  ••  Cabinet. 

and  advised.  He  left  but  one  thing  remaining 
to  be  done  for  the  completion  of  the  system  of  ministerial 
government  in 
England  as  it  is 
now  carried  on. 
That  one  thing 
was  the  fixing  in 
practice  of  a  rule 
that  ministries 
shall  quit  office 
when  outvoted 
in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  any 
proposal  that 
they  make.  That 
became  a  little 
later  the  estab- 
lished rule,  and 
thus,  though 
ministers  are  ap- 
pointed   by   the 


SIR    ROBERT    WALPOLE. 


sovereign,    they 

cannot    stay    in 

office  without  the  approval  of  the  representatives  of  the 

people. 

326.  Walpole's  Character  and  Adniinistration.  Sir 
Robert  Walpole  had  no  shining  qualities  or  brilliant  gifts. 
His  morals,  his  manners,  his  tastes,  were  anything  but 
refined  ;  his  ideals  in  statesmanship  were  prosaic  in  the 
last  degree.  He  aimed  at  nothing  but  strictly  material 
benefits  to  the  country,  with  an  eye  to  its  comfortable 


514  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1720-1742 

contentment,  and  nothing  else.  But  that  was  what  Eng- 
land most  needed  in  his  day,  for  the  stable  settlement 
of  its  parliamentary  constitution,  under  the  new  race  of 
kings,  and  there  was  almost  perfect  practical  wisdom 
in  the  policy  that  he  carried  out.  He  kept  the  country 
out  of  war  for  a  score  of  years,  by  steadily  resisting 
frothy  passions  in  Parliament  and  Hanoverian  ambitions 
in  the  king.  He  softened  the  operation  of  the  hard 
laws  against  dissenters,  but  would  not  have  the  worst 
of  them  repealed,  because  such  m.easures  would  excite 
the  Jacobite  temper  in  the  clergy  of  the  established 
church.  He  lightened  the  national  burdens  by  careful 
economy  and  skilful  measures  of  finance.  He  lapped 
England  in  a  restful  prosperity  and  ease  that  were  politi- 
cally but  not  morally  for  its  good. 

On  its  moral  side,  Walpole's  statesmanship  of  plain 
common  sense  offers  nothing  to  admire.  He  had  no 
scruple  as  to  the  means  by  which  its  objects  were  at- 
tained. He  not  only  increased  the  use  of  corrupt  influ- 
ence in  parliamentary  elections  and  in  Parliament  itself, 
Political  which  had  been  growing  since  the  Stuart  resto- 
corruption.  nation,  but  he  did  so,  apparently,  with  no  wish 
for  a  purer  state  of  things.  He  had  nothing  but  derision 
for  all  classes  of  reformers  and  all  notions  of  reform. 
The  age  was  one  of  generally  low  aims,  little  warmth 
of  feeling,  little  faith  in  humanity,  little  inspiration  of 
any  nature,  and  Walpole's  personal  influence  and  public 
policy  helped,  unquestionably,  to  lower  the  prevailing 
tone  of  disposition  and  thought  still  more. 

327.  Death  of  George  I.  and  Accession  of  George  II. 
When  George  I.  died,  in  1727,  it  seemed  impossible  that 
Walpole  should  continue  in  power.  Positive  hatred  had 
existed  between  the  late  king  and  the  son  who  succeeded 
him,  and  the  animosity  of   the   latter  extended    to   his 


1727-1742]  MINISTERIAL   GOVERNMENT.  515 

father's  ministers  and  friends.  But  George  II.  was  in- 
fluenced by  a  queen  more  intelligent  than  himself,  and 
with  her  support  the  reins  of  government  were  kept  in 
Walpole's  hands. 

328.  Growth  of  Opposition.  For  a  dozen  years  in 
the  new  reign,  Walpole  was  still  supreme  ;  but  the  oppo- 
sition to  him  grew  strong  at  last,  by  a  combination  of 
resentful  and  discontented  Whigs  with  the  small  body 
of  Tories  that  was  still  active  in  public  life.  It  was 
managed  for  a  time  on  the  latter  side  by  the  skilful  hand 
of  Bolingbroke,  who  had  obtained  pardon  and  permission 
to  return  •  to  England,  after  long  exile,  partly  spent  in 
the  service  of  the  Pretender,  in  France.  The  opposing 
Whigs  were  led  by  William  Pulteney,  afterwards  Earl  of 
Bath,  and  Lord  Carteret,  afterwards  Earl  Granville,  both 
able  men,  and  it  included  a  group  of  talented  The  eider 
and  high-spirited  young  men  (scornfully  alluded  ■^^"* 

to  by  Walpole  as  "  the  Boys  "),  the  most  conspicuous  of 
whom  was  William  Pitt. 

329.  The  Fall  of  Walpole.     It  was  a  sign  of  healthy 
wakening  in  English  feeling,  that  the  attack  of  the  oppo- 
sition to  Walpole,  especially  on  the  part  of  *the  younger 
men,  turned  chiefly  against  his  corrupt  practices  ;  but 
his  guilt  in  those  practices  was  not  the  cause  of  his  fall. 
He  suffered  finally  for  what  was  most  praiseworthy  in 
his  policy,  its  obstinacy  against  war.      Spain  was  giving 
rough  treatment    to  English    smugglers,   who   swarmed 
about  her  colonies,   carrying  on  a  forbidden  trade,  and 
when,  in   1738,  one  Captain  Jenkins  came  home  with  an 
ear  torn  off  by  Spanish  officials,  there  was  a  rage  excited 
which  nothing  but  war  would  appease.     Wal-  ..The 
pole  obtained   promises  of   reasonable  satisfac-  Jenkins's 
tion  from  Spain,  but  he  could  make  no  head  ^^^•" 
against  the  furor  which  his  opponents  worked  up,  and 


5i6 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1739-1742 


*'  The  War  of  Jenkins's  Ear,"  as  it  was  called,  broke  out, 
in  October,  1739.  Unwisely,  the  defeated  minister  stayed 
in  office  for  two  years  more  ;  but  his  supremacy  was  lost, 
and  in  1742  he  resigned,  retiring,  with  the  title  of  Earl 
of  Orford,  to  the  House  of  Lords. 

330.  The  Methodist  Revival.      It  was  in  these  last 
years  of  Walpole's  ministry,  when  England,  spiritually, 

was  in  a  most  lifeless  state, 
that  an  extraordinary  reli- 
gious revival,  out  of  which 
rose  the  Methodist  organi- 
zation of  a  new  church,  was 
begun  by  John  and  Charles 
Wesley,  by  George  White- 
field,  and  by  others  who 
joined  them  in  their  mis- 
sionary work.  They  were 
clergymen  of  the  church  of 
England,  and  it  was  not 
their  purpose  to  lead  any 
new  movement  of  separa- 
tion from  it ;  but  the  emotion  which  they  believed  to  be 
essential  to  religion,  and  which  they  sought  to  arouse, 
was  disapproved  by  the  ruling  clergy  of  the  church,  and 
most  of  its  pulpits  were  closed  against  their  preaching. 
Driven  to  the  holding  of  open  air  meetings  and  to  the 
building  of  plain  chapels  for  their  congregations,  which 
quickly  swelled  to  thousands,  their  movement  became, 
without  intention,  a  great  secession  from  the  established 
church.  But  even  the  established  church  was  stirred  pro- 
foundly by  the  passionate  revival,  and  the  whole  moral 
and  religious  tone  of  English  society  was  affected  to  a 
greater  depth  in  its  lower  classes  than  it  had  been  by  the 
wakening  of  the  Puritan  age. 


JOHN    WESLEY. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.     517 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

320.  George  I. 
Topics. 

1.  Effect  of  the  change  in  the  royal  family. 

2.  Characteristics  of  the  king. 

3.  Precedent  which  he  established  in  legislation. 
References.  —  Bright,  iii.   930,931;  Green,  721,   722;    Morris, 

The  Early  Hanoverians,  27,  28. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Trace  the  claim  of  George  I.  to  the 
throne.  (2.)  Point  out  Hanover  on  the  map.  (3.)  What  is  its 
approxima-te  size  ?  (4.)  What  is  meant  by  an  electorate  ?  (5.) 
What  other  kings  of  England  had  been  firstmagnateson  the  con- 
tinent.'* (6.)  When  was  this  union  with  Hanover  dissolved? 
(Morris,  Early  Hanoverians,  24.)  (7.)  Heretofore,  what  had  been 
the  custom  of  the  kings  in  regard  to  council  meetings }  (8.) 
What  change  in  this  procedure  did  George  I.'s  ignorance  of  Eng- 
lish make  ?  (9.)  This  established  what  change  in  government  ? 
(ID.)  After  the  establishment  of  party  government,  to  whom 
were  ministers  responsible  .^  (11.)  While  they  were  responsible  to 
the  king,  what  way  only  had  Parliament  to  bring  them  to  account  1 
(Montague,  171.)  (12.)  What  treatment  was  given  Anne's  last 
ministry.-^  (Bright,  iii.  932.)  (13.)  Why  is  this  likely  to  be  the 
last  impeachment  for  political  purposes  in  English  history? 

321.  Tories  and  Jacobites. 

Topics. 

1.  Tory  weakness  and  discontent. 

2.  Jacobite  uprising  in  Scotland. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  931-938. 

322.  Parliament  and  the  Whigs. 
Topics. 

1,  Unpopularity  of  the  king  and  the  court. 

2.  The  Septennial  Act. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  704,  706. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Is  the  Septennial  Act  still  in  force? 
(2).  How  could  it  be  justified  ?     (Bright,  iii.  939.) 

323.  Foreign  Relations. 
Topics. 

I.  Alliance  on  the  continent. 


5l8  MINISTERIAL   GOVERNMENT. 

2.  Disagreement  over  the  king's  continental  policy. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  942-946. 

324.  The  South  Sea  Bubble. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Mississippi  Scheme. 

2.  The  South  Sea  Company. 

3.  Frenzy  of  speculation  and  awakening  from  the  delusion. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  711,  712:  Bright,  iii.  949-954;  Green, 

728;  Colby,  229-231  ;  Morley,  62-64;  Traill,  v.  127-129,  144,  145; 
Lecky,  i.  348-350- 

325.  Walpole,  Prime  Minister. 
Topics. 

1.  His  attitude  toward  speculation  and  his  rise  to  power. 

2.  Creation  of  prime  ministry  and  cabinet. 

3.  One  thing  remaining  to  be  done. 

Reference. —  Gardiner,  iii.  712-730.  Sir  Robert  Walpole  :  Bright, 
iii.  913,  931,  942-987;  Green,  720-734;  Morley,  Walpole  ;  Colby, 
235-237;  Montague,  172,  173. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  In  becoming  prime  minister,  Wal- 
pole took,  in  fact,  the  place  which  had  been  vacated  by  whom  ? 
(2.)  How  was  the  title  regarded  at  first?  (Gardiner,  iii.  717.) 
(3.)  What  government  office  did  and  does  the  prime  minister 
usually  hold  .?     (4.)  Why.?    (Gardiner,  iii,  720.) 

326.  Walpole's  Character  and  Administration. 

Topics. 

1.  His  traits  and  policy. 

2.  His  corrupting  influence. 

References.  —  Morley,  Walpole.    Rotten  boroughs  :    Ransome, 

112,  165  ;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  466-468. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  were  Walpole's  qualities  as 

a  peace  minister,  and  as   a  financier  ?     (Green,  730.)     (2.)  What 

did  Walpole  do  toward  paying  the  national  debt  ?     (Bright,  iii. 

950;   Morris,  Early  Hanoverians,  64.) 

327.  Death  of  George  I.  and  Accession  of  George  II. 
Topics. 

1.  Feeling  between  the  late  king  and  his  heir. 

2.  Influence  of  the  queen. 

References.  —  liright,  iii.  966,  967.  Queen  Caroline:  Morley, 
Walpole,  ch.  v.;   Lecky,  i.  503,  504. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.     519 

328.  Growth  of  Opposition. 
Topics. 

1.  Bolingbroke  leads  the  opposing  Tories. 

2.  Leaders  among  the  opposing  Whigs. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  720-722,  728,  729. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  financial  measure  gave  Wal- 
pole's  enemies  a  charge  against  him?  (Bright,  iii.  973.)  (2.) 
How  did  Walpole  attempt  to  deal  with  smuggling.?  (Bright,  iii. 
974.).  (3.)  What  is  the  difference  between  an  excise  and  a  tax  ? 
(4.)  Why  do  people  dislike  an  excise  more  than  a  custom  duty  } 
(5.)  What  other  class  of  men  opposed  the  government  ?  (Bright, 
iii  978.) 

329.  The  Fall  of  Walpole. 
Topics. 

1.  Attack  on  his  corrupt  measures. 

2.  "The  War  of  Jenkins's  Ear." 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  980-987. 

330.  The  Methodist  Revival. 
Topics. 

1.  Reforms  advocated  by  Wesley  and  Whitefield. 

2.  Effect  on  the  established  church. 
Reference.  —  Green,  736-740. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

EXPANSION    OF    EMPIRE. 

George  II.     1742-1760. 

331.  Walpole's  First  Successors.  The  government 
gained  nothing  in  purity  from  Walpole's  removal,  to  offset 
the  loss  of  his  brain  and  hand.  A  ministry  was  made 
up  which  had  no  real  head.  Carteret,  who  became  one 
of  the  secretaries  of  state,  devoted  himself  to  foreign 
affairs.  His  fellow  secretary,  the  Duke  of  Newcastle, 
an  extremely  incapable  man,  acquired  then  such  power 
in  the  government,  by  reason  of  nothing  but  the  number 
of  votes  in  the  House  of  Commons  which  he  and  his 
family,  the  Pelhams,  corruptly  controlled,  that  he  practi- 
cally swayed  it  for  many  years. 

332.  The  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession.  Even 
before  the  retirement  of  Walpole,  the  war  with  Spain 
had  been  merged  in  the  great  European  War  of  the 
Austrian  Succession  (see  page  480),  in  which  England 
bore  an  undistinguished  part,  mostly  with  her  navy  and 
her  money,  paying  the  latter  in  what  were  called  sub- 
sidies to  Austria  and  Sardinia,  for  the  support  of  the 
armies  which  they  put  into  the  field.  In  this  phase  its 
popularity  was  soon  lost.  It  was  denounced  as  a  war 
Rise  of  the  Carried  on  in  the  interest  of  Hanover,  not  Eng- 
eiderPitt.     j^j^^.j^  ^^^^  William  Pitt,  then  winning  the  ear  of 

the  country  as  a  bold  and  impassioned  orator  in  Parlia- 
ment, led  the  attack.  In  1744,  Carteret  gave  up  office, 
and  Newcastle  and  his  brother,  Henry  Pelham,  a  much 
more  competent  man,  were  in  full  control. 


I743-I746]  EXPANSION    OF    EMPIRE.  $21 

One  army,  during  the  war,  was  made  up  in  part  of 
British  troops,  acting  in  conjunction  with  Hanoverians, 
Austrians,  and  Dutch.  Its  field  was  Flanders,  and  the 
neighboring  part  of  Germany,  where  it  fought  two  battles 
with  the  French,  —  the  first,  successfully,  under 
the  personal  command  of  King  George,  at  Det-  and  Fonte- 
tingen,  in  1743  ;  the  second,  in  1745,  with  de-  ^°^' 
feat,  at  Fontenoy,  where  the  allies  were  commanded  by 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  the  king's  younger  son. 

333.  The  Last  Jacobite  Rising.  The  defeat  at  Fon- 
tenoy, in  May,  1745,  was  followed  in  July  by  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  Pretender's  son,  Charles  Edward 
(called  "the  Young  Pretender"),  to  raise  rebellion  in 
Scotland,  by  entering  the  country  and  appealing  to  the 
Highland  clans.  A  few  thousand  clansmen  gathered 
round  him  and  were  led  to  Edinburgh,  taking  the  city 
with  ease.  Defeating  a  small  English  force  at  Preston 
Pans,  in  September,  the  prince  then  ventured,  in  Novem- 
ber, to  invade  England,  with  his  army  of  about  6000 
Highlanders,  expecting  a  great  Jacobite  rising,  which  did 
not  take  place. 

The  Young  Pretender's  invasion  of  England  was  aban- 
doned at  Derby,  from  which  point  he  fell  back  to  Scot- 
land, defeating  at  Falkirk  an  EngHsh  army  that  had 
followed  his  retreat.  The  inefficiency  of  the  British  gov- 
ernment gave  him  all  his  success.  It  was  not  until  April, 
1746,  that  his  faithful  Highlanders  were  broken  Battle  of 
and  scattered,  at  CuUoden,  by  the  Duke  of  Cum-  CuUoden. 
berland's  army  of  British  and  Hanoverian  troops.  The 
duke  then  earned  the  name  of  "  the  Butcher  "  by  the 
barbarity  with  which  he  hunted  the  beaten  rebels  down. 
Charles  Edward,  after  perilous  adventures  more  roman- 
tic than  those  of  Charles  Stuart  in  165 1  (see  section  251), 
escaped  to  France,  owing  his  safety  in  the  main  to  the 


522  ARISTOCRATIC    GOVERNMENT.         [1744-1751 

courage  and  address  of  Flora  Macdonald,  a  young  woman 
of  the  Hebrides.  The  Hanoverian  sovereigns  of  Great 
Britain  had  nothing  thereafter  to  fear  from  the  Stuart 
pretenders ;  and  the  Scottish  Highlands  became  as 
orderly  as  any  other  part  of  the  British  Isle. 

334.  The  War  in  America.  The  most  important 
British  success  in  the  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession 
(see  page  480)  had  been  won  in  America  meantime  by 
the  colonists,  who  sent  an  expedition,  in  1744,  against 
Louisburg,  in  Cape  Breton,  and  captured  that  great 
French  fort.  In  American  history  this  war  is  often 
called  King  George's  or  the  Third  Intercolonial  War. 

335.  The  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle.  In  1748,  the 
war  was  stopped  by  treaties  negotiated  at  Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle, which  left  nothing  to  either  England  or  France 
for  all  its  cost.  Each  surrendered  its  conquests  from 
the  other.  Louisburg  was  given  up  to  the  French, 
greatly  to  American  disgust ;  but  disputes  concerning 
boundaries  between  the  French  and  English  possessions 
in  America  were  left  open,  to  be  the  cause  of  another 
war  very  soon.  The  peace  was  followed,  however,  by  a 
few  years  of  uneventful  prosperity  and  a  rapid  increase 
of  wealth.      In  the  home  affairs  of  England,  the  measure 

most  important  in  those  years  was  probably 
and  New  onc  which  corrected  the  calendar,  in  175 1, 
^^^^^"  adding  eleven  days  to  that  year,  and  making 

subsequent  years  begin  on  the  ist  of  January,  instead  of 
on  the  25th  of  March. 

336.  The  Clashing  of  French  and  English  in  America. 
The  rival  claims  and  ambitions  of  the  French  and  English 
in  the  New  World  were  now  pushing  the  two  peoples  into 
a  renewal  of  war.  Both  claimed  ownership  of  the  interior 
of  the  continent,  south  of  the  great  lakes.  The  English 
claimed  it  as  belonging  to  their  colonies  on  the  Atlantic 


1753-1756]  EXPANSION    OF    EMPIRE.  523 

coast ;  the  French  claimed  by  right  of  exploration  and 
occupation,  in  which  they  had  taken  the  lead.  While  the 
English  had  given  a  deep  root  of  permanence  to  their  sea- 
board settlements  in  America,  establishing  communities 
that  were  growing  with  a  vigorous  life  of  their  own,  they 
had  done  little  towards  laying  hold  in  advance  of  the 
wilderness  beyond.  The  French,  on  the  contrary,  whose 
oldest  settlements  were  little  more  than  military  posts, 
had  swarmed  over  wide  areas  of  the  continent,  explor- 
ing, trading,  founding  missions,  planting  flags,  building 
forts,  busy  in  every  way  with  efforts  to  establish  a  large 
territorial  claim.  There  can  never  have  been  much 
uncertainty  as  to  which  mode  of  possession  would  win 
America  in  the  end  ;  but  there  might  easily  have  been  a 
much  longer  struggle  than  that  which  now  occurred. 

It  opened  in  the  upper  valley  of  the  Ohio,  through 
which  the  French  were  undertaking  to  establish  a  chain 
of  strong  forts,  from  Lake  Erie  to  the  Mississippi.  The 
governor  of  Virginia,  in  1753,  sent  George  Washington, 
then  an  officer  of  the  Virginia  militia,  to  pro-  washing- 
test  to  the  French  commander  against  this  *°^' 
invasion  of  the  English  domain.  The  protest  had  no 
effect,  and  when  Washington  attempted,  the  next  year, 
with  a  small  force,  to  build  an  opposing  fort,  he  was  at- 
tacked by  superior  numbers  and  forced  to  retire.  This 
was  the  opening  of  actual  hostilities,  which  went  on  for 
some  time  in  America,  and  extended  even  to  various  sea 
fights,  before  the  state  of  war  was  officially  declared. 

337.  The  Seven  Years'  War.  If  the  King  of  England 
had  not  been  likewise  Elector  of  Hanover,  this  war  of 
England  and  France  over  disputed  possessions  in  Amer- 
ica would  not  have  become  mixed  up  with  the  great  at- 
tack on  Frederick  of  Prussia  which  is  known  in  history 
as  the  Seven  Years'  War  (see  page  481).     But  fears  for 


5^4  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1755-1757 

Hanover  led  King  George  and  his  ministers  to  form  an 
alliance  with  Frederick  the  Great.  France  was  then 
persuaded  to  join  the  foes  of  Frederick,  and  so  she  en- 
gaged herself  in  a  struggle  with  that  indomitable  soldier 
which  terribly  crippled  her  contest  in  America  and  pro- 
foundly affected  its  immediate  result.  To  the  Americans, 
on  their  side  of  it,  this  seven  years'  conflict,  which  raged 
in  many  parts  of  the  world,  was  known  simply  as  The 
French  and  Indian  War. 

Until  1757,  there  was  wretched  incapacity  in  the  Eng- 
lish management  of  the  war.  The  defeat  of  an  expe- 
dition led  by  General  Braddock  against  the  French  in 
western  Pennsylvania  (1755),  a  humiliating 
surrender  of  the  island  of  Minorca,  in  1756, 
(for  which  Admiral  Byng  was  barbarously  condemned 
and  shot,  to  appease  public  rage),  and  a  panic  fear  of 
French  invasion  which  shook  England  that  year,  were 
among  the  humiliations  that  the  nation  underwent. 

338.  The  Great  Administration  of  the  Elder  Pitt. 
But  now  came  a  wondrous  change,  the  work  of  a  great 
war  minister,  William  Pitt.  Pitt  had  offended  the  king 
by  his  bold  protest  against  measures  making  England 
the  servant  of  Hanover,  but  he  had  delighted  the  people, 
on  that  and  other  subjects,  by  the  freedom  and  eloquence 
of  his  speech.  Newspapers  were  becoming  numerous  by 
this  time,  and  some  reporting  of  the  talk  and  doings  of 
Parliament  had  been  begun.  The  public  opinion  of  a 
great  middle  class,  already  supreme  in  political  weight, 
but  feebly  represented  in  Parliament,  was  being  thus 
called  into  action  and  making  itself  felt  as  an  outside 
force.  Pitt  was  the  first  of  public  men  in  England  to 
be  pushed  into  power  by  that  force,  which  acted  from 
beyond  the  walls  of  Parliament  and  against  strong  opposi- 
tion at  court. 


1757] 


EXPANSION    OF    EMPIRE. 


525 


His  hour  of  opportunity  was  reached  in  1757,  when 
the  king  had  to  consent  to  a  division  of  authority  in  the 
government  between  Newcastle  and  Pitt,  giving  the  lat- 
ter full  control  of  the  management  of  the  war,  and  of 
public  policy  at  large.  The  rapidity  with  which  a  change 
was  then  wrought  in  the  whole  spirit  of  the  public  ser- 
vice of  the  nation  is  a  marvel  not   easily  ex- 

-^  Animation 

plamed.      In  some  way,  the  energy,  the  cnthu-  of  the  pub- 

lie  service 

siasm,  the  courage,  the  ambition,  the  pride  of 
country  that  moved  the  great  minister,  were  electrically 
carried  through 
every  channel  of 
action  that  he 
touched.  His  self- 
confidence  was  su- 
perb. "  I  know," 
he  said,  "that 
I  can  save  this 
nation,  and  that 
nobody  else  can." 
With  this  feeling 
he  claimed  and 
exercised  an  au- 
thority to  which 
all  precedents,  all 
practices,  and  all 
other  wills  must 
bow.  His  under- 
takings in  the 
war  were  not  al- 
ways well  planned, 

but  the  faith  and  energy  with  which  he  inspired  it  over- 
came every  mistake  and  added  triumph  to  triumph  during 
three  intoxicating  years. 


WILLIAM    PITT,    THE    ELDER. 


526 


ARISTOCRATIC  GOVERNMENT. 


[1758 


339.  The  Conquest  of  Canada.  In  1758,  Louisburg 
and  Fort  Duquesne  (afterwards  called  Pittsburg)  were 
taken,  but  General  Abercrombie,  who  attempted  the 
capture  of  Ticonderoga,  suffered  a  bloody  repulse.      In 

the  following  year,  Gen- 
eral Amherst  succeeded 
where  Abercrombie  had 
failed.  Then,  too,  the 
strong  citadel  of  Que- 
bec, supposed  to  be  im- 
pregnable, was  taken  by 
the  gallant  Wolfe,  who 
fell  in  the  moment  of 
victory,  while  Mont- 
calm, his  noble  enemy, 
died  in  its  defence. 
Before  another  year 
closed,  the  whole  of 
Canada  was  submissive 
to  the  British  arms,  and 
the  struggle  with  France  in  America  was  at  an  end. 

340.  Conquests  in  India.  The  supremacy  of  the  Brit- 
ish in  India  was  practically  established  in  these  same 
extraordinary  years,  not  by  the  British  government,  but 
by  the  great  mercantile  East  India  Company,  first  char- 
tered by  Queen  Elizabeth,  re-chartered  by  Charles  II., 
and  reconstructed  in  1702.  Until  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  the  company  had  only  occupied,  by 
permission  of  native  rulers,  a  few  trading  stations,  at 
Madras,  Bombay,  Calcutta,  and  some  minor  points.  Then, 
being  seriously  threatened  by  the  French,  who  were  get- 
ting a  foothold  in  southeastern  India  by  intermeddling  in 
native  wars,  the  company  began  opposing  them  by  simi- 
lar means.     Its  undertakings  were  made  successful  by  a 


JAMES    WOLFE. 


I 746-1 760] 


EXPANSION    OF   EMPIRE. 


527 


Clive. 


remarkable  young  soldier,  Robert  Clive,  who  rose  from 
a  clerkship  in  its  ofifices  to  military  command.  P^rench 
influence  was  quickly  checked  and  the  subjugation  of 
great  districts  of  India  to  English  rule  was  begun. 

The  first  of  the  Indian  princes  to  be  overthrown  was 
Surajah  Dowlah,  who  bore  the  title  of  Subahdar  of  Bengal. 
He  had  attacked  and  taken  Calcutta,  and  had  thrust  146 
of  the  English,  without  air  or  water,  into  one  small  room, 
where  all  but  23  perished  of  suffocation  in  a  single  night. 
Clive  was  swift  in  avenging  this  horror  of  "  the 
Black  Hole  of  Calcutta."  With  900  Europeans 
and  1500  native  troops  (sepoys),  he  scattered  an  army 
of  50,000,  at  Plassey  (June,  1757),  and  Surajah  Dowlah 
reigned  in  Bengal  no  more.  Three  years  later  the  last 
stand    of    the    French 


against  the  English  in 
southeastern  India  was 
made  at  Wandiwash, 
and  they  were  de- 
feated by  Colonel 
Coote.  There  and  in 
Bengal,  thereafter,  the 
great  company  was 
a  sovereign  power, 
though  a  show  of  gov- 
ernment by  obedient 
native  rulers  was  kept 
up. 

341.  Death  of 
George  II.  and  End 
of  Pitt's  Administration. 


ROBERT    CLIVE. 


At  sea  the  British  triumphs 
in  these  marvellous  years  were  equal  to  those  won  upon 
the  land.  Admiral  Boscawen  scattered  one  fleet  of  the 
French  in  battle  off  Lagos  in  Portugal  ;  Admiral  Hawke 


528  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1760-1761 

shattered  another  in  Ouiberon  Bay  ;  and  EngUsh  mastery 
of  the  ocean  was  subject  no  longer  to  any  serious  dispute. 
Three  years  which  have  no  equal  in  the  history  of  the 
expansion  of  British  empire  and  the  rise  of  British  mari- 
time power  were  rounded  out  in  1 760,  and  in  October  of 
that  year  George  II.  died.  He  was  succeeded  by  his 
grandson,  George  III.,  whose  father.  Prince  Frederick, 
died  nine  years  before.  The  young  king,  arbitrary  and 
opinionated  from  the  first,  had  no  respect  for  the  public 
opinion  which  gave  Pitt  his  strength,  and  the  domination 
of  the  latter  in  the  government  was  lost.  In  October, 
1 76 1,  he  resigned. 

TOPICS,  REFERENCES,   AND  RESEARCH  QUESTIONS. 

331.  Walpole's  First  Successors. 
Topic 

I.  Carteret  and  Newcastle. 
Reference,  —  Gardiner,  iii.  730-732. 

332.  The  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession. 

Topics. 

1.  England's  part  in  the  war. 

2.  Change  in  the  ministry. 

3.  Dettingen  and  Fontenoy. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  989-999. 

333.  The  Last  Jacobite  Rising. 

Topics. 

1.  The  Young  Pretender  in  Scotland  and  England. 

2.  Battle  of  Culloden,  and  the  escape  of  the  prince. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  999-1008. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  poem  of  Campbell's  refers 
to  the  field  of  Culloden?  (2.)  What  novel  describes  this  at- 
tempt of  the  Young  Pretender  ?  (3.)  What  was  the  last  repre- 
sentative of  the  Stuart  family  in  Europe.^     (Gardiner,  iii.  743.) 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.        529 

334.  The  War  in  America. 
Topic. 

I.  Capture  of  Louisburg. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  753. 

335.  The  Peace  of  Aix-la-Chapelle. 
Topics. 

1.  Terms  of  the  treaty. 

2.  Correction  of  the  calendar. 
Reference. —  Bright,  iii.  ion,  1012,  1014,  1015. 

336.  The  Clashing  of  French  and  English  in  America. 

Topics. 

1.  Grounds  for  the  claims  of  each  country. 

2.  Different  modes  of  possession, 

3.  Outbreak  of  hostilities. 
Reference.  —  Green,  746,  747. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Name  and  locate  English,  French, 
and  Spanish  possessions  in  North  America  at  this  time.  (2.) 
What  cause  for  hostilities  was  sure  to  arise  .''  (3.)  Was  there  any 
other  question  which  might  embitter  the  strife  ?  (4.)  Compare 
the  English  settlements  with  the  French  in  respect  to  ease  of 
defence.  (5.)  For  what  kind  of  warfare  did  the  French  have  the 
advantage  ? 

337.  The  Seven  Years'  War. 
Topics. 

1.  War  the  consequence  of  the  connection  with  Hanover. 

2.  The  war  in  America. 

3.  English  losses  and  defeats. 
Reference.  —  Green,  747,  748. 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  What  name  did  this  war  bear  in 
America?  (2.)  If  France  engaged  in  wars  in  Europe,  what  part 
of  her  domain  must  she  leave  unstrengthened  and  undefended  ? 
(3.)  For  what  nations  was  it  purely  a  trade  war  in  its  effects? 
(4.)  Show  that  the  striving  for  territory  was  really  a  striving  for 
trade.  (5.)  What  do  we  consider  the  proper  condition  for  trade 
to-day. 


530  EXPANSION    OF   EMPIRE. 

338.  The  Great  Administration  of  the  Elder  Pitt. 
Topics. 

1.  William  Pitt. 

2.  The  support  behind  him. 

3.  Pitt  in  the  war  office. 

4.  His  self-confidence  and  success. 
Reference.  —  Green,  748-755. 

Research  Questions. —  (i.)  If  the  king  did  not  like  Pitt,  how 
could  the  latter  become  minister  ?  (2.)  What  is  the  significance 
of  this.^     (Gardiner,  iii.  743.) 

339.  The  Conquest  of  Canada. 
Topics. 

1.  Early  successes  of  the  war. 

2.  Capture  of  Quebec. 

References.  —  Green,  TSS-IST-!  Gardiner,  755,  756:  Bright,  iii. 
1029-1031  ;  Colby,   247-250;  Gibbins,   128-131  ;  Traill,  v.   193- 

200. 

340.  Conquests  in  India. 
Topics. 

1.  East  India  Company's  supremacy  under  Clive. 

2.  The  Black  Hole  of  Calcutta  and  the  battle  of  Plassey. 

3.  Disappearance  of  French  influence. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  758-764.  Clive:  Gardiner,  iii.  761- 
764,801;  Bright,  iii.  1113-1124;  Guest,  526,  527;  Colby,  244- 
247  ;  Macaulay,  Essay  on  Clive. 

341.  Death  of  George  II.  and  End  of   Pitt's  Admin- 
istration. 

Topics. 

1.  Triumphs  at  sea. 

2.  English  expansion. 

3.  Death  of  the  king  and  resignation  of  Pitt. 
References.  —  Green,  757-761. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  was  done  to  continue  Wal- 
pole's  work  in  reducing  the  debt?  (Bright,  iii.  1013.)  (2.)  What 
was  the  state  of  religion  in  England  during  the  reigns  of  these 
two  Georges?  (Green,  735,  736.)  (3.)  What  was  being  done  for 
the  education  of  the  poor?  (Green,  736.)  (4.)  Were  there  any 
signs  of  philanthropic  work?  (Green,  740.)  (5.)  What  literary 
product  was  begun  in  this  age  ?     (Gardiner,  iii.  746.) 


CHAPTER   XXIII. 


BACKWARD    STEPS    AND    LOSS    OF    EMPIRE. 


George  III.     1 760-1 788. 

342.  The  Ideas  of  George  III.  The  progress  of  Eng- 
land toward  the  perfecting  of  its  ministerial  system  of 
government  was  seriously  interrupted  by  George  III., 
who  had  been 
taught,  especially  by 
his  German  mother, 
to  look  on  that  sys- 
tem as  an  uncon- 
stitutional growth, 
which  it  was  his  duty 
to  destroy.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  there 
was  nothing  of  the 
lawlessness  of  the 
Stuarts  in  what  he 
undertook  to  do. 
Thus  far,  the  minis- 
terial system  had 
not  received  any 
well-marked  consti- 
tutional stamp.  It 
had    been    substan-  george  m. 

tially   controlled    in 

its  working  by  a  few  great  Whig  families,  which  held  a 
corrupt  influence  over  Parliament,  and  the  king  simply 


532  ARISTOCRATIC    GOVERNMENT.         [1760-1763 

claimed  that  he  had  a  better  right  than  they  to  control 
it  by  the  same  means.  The  good  result  in  the  end  was 
its  independence  of  both. 

According  to  his  lights,  King  George  was  a  conscien- 
tious man,  and  he  was  ambitious  to  be  ''  a  patriot  king  ; " 
but  he  was  narrow  in  intellect,  deficient  in  education  and 
information,  obstinate  in  opinions  and  in  preju- 

The  phflji*- 

acter  of       diccs  oucc  formed.      But  an  exemplary  life,  a 
®°^^^      ■  rigid  piety,  a  simple  dignity  of  manner,  a  thor- 
oughly English  spirit,  gave  him  personal  popularity  at 
the  outset  of  his  long  reign. 

343.  Government  by  the  "  King's  Friends."  Not 
many  months  passed,  after  the  beginning  of  the  new 
reign,  before  a  controlling  number  of  cabinet  ministers 
were  the  "king's  friends,"  with  Lord  Bute,  a  special 
favorite  of  the  king  and  his  mother,  at  their  head.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  a  new  Tory  party,  which  drew 
back  into  active  politics  the  old  Tory  classes,  and  united 
them  with  a  body  of  deserting  Whigs. 

344.  The  Peace  of  Paris.  The  first  object  of  the 
new  government  was  to  bring  the  war,  which  gave  Pitt 
so  much  glory,  to  a  close,  and  this  was  done  by  a  treaty 
signed  at  Paris,  February,  1763.  The  terms  of  peace, 
though  immensely  favorable  to  England,  were  not  satis- 
factory to  the  great  war  minister,  and  public  opinion 
sustained  his  views.  Yet  England  had  received  from 
British  France  the  whole  of  Canada  and  Cape  Breton, 
gains.  ^i^Y^  several  islands  in  the  West  Indies,  while 
Spain,  which  had  joined  France  in  the  last  year  of  the 
war,  yielded  Florida  in  exchange  for  the  city  of  Havana, 
taken  by  an  English  fleet  in  1762,  and  France  ceded 
Louisiana  to  Spain. 

345.  The  Grenville  Ministry.  Bute,  already  odious, 
as  a  king's  favorite  and  a  Scotchman,  was  so  violently 


1763-1764]  BACKWARD    STEPS.  533 

abused  on  account  of  the  treaty  that  he  resigned.  George 
Grenville,  who  took  his  place,  was  Pitt's  brother-in-law, 
but  had  turned  against  him  and  broken  his  connection 
with  the  Whigs.  He  was  expected  to  be  a  pliant  ser- 
vant of  the  king,  secretly  guided  by  Bute  ;  but,  though 
he  agreed  with  the  arbitrary  notions  of  King  George,  he 
and  his  chief  supporter,  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  took  a 
tone  of  arrogance  that  gave  his  majesty  great  offence. 
For  two  years,  however,  the  king's  efforts  to  rid  himself 
of  Grenville  and  Bedford  were  vain. 

346.  Persecution  of  John  Wilkes  and  the  News- 
paper Press.  Meantime,  Grenville  and  his  colleagues, 
with  the  king's  approval,  had  plunged  the  country  into  a 
sea  of  troubles,  by  follies  at  home  and  abroad.  The  folly 
at  home  was  a  malignant  attack  on  the  freedom  of  the 
press,  as  represented  by  one  John  Wilkes,  a  member  of 
Parliament,  who  conducted  a  newspaper  called  "  The 
North  Briton,"  with  especial  hostility  to  Bute.  P'or 
some  sharp  criticism  of  Bute  and  the  king,  "The North 
Wilkes  and  his  printers  were  arrested,  on  a  S'^iton." 
general  warrant  —  a  warrant,  that  is,  against  persons  not 
named  —  which  was.  issued  by  one  of  the  secretaries  of 
state.  The  whole  proceeding  was  declared  illegal  by  the 
courts  ;  whereupon  the  government  began  a  series  of 
persecutions,  intended  to  crush  the  offending  editor  and 
his  sheet.  He  was  expelled  from  Parliament  (1764)  and 
criminally  prosecuted  for  an  indecent  piece  of  verse  that 
he  had  written,  but  which  had  never  appeared  in  public 
print.  He  took  refuge  in  France,  and  the  government 
seemed  to  be  rid  of  him  ;  but  it  was  only  for  a  time. 

Wilkes  was  a  man  of  keen  wit  and  many  social  accom- 
plishments, but  odious  in  moral  character,  living  a  shame- 
fully profligate  life.  Under  common  circumstances  he 
would  have  been  generally  disliked  ;  but  the  malice  with 


534  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.  [1764 

which  he  was  pursued,  and  the  hostiUty  to  free  speech 
that  appeared  in  his  persecution,  roused  a  feeling  in  his 
favor  which  made  him  a  popular  hero  and  caused  danger- 
ous disturbances  at  a  later  day. 

347.  The  Quarrel  with  American  Colonies.  The 
other  folly  was  more  serious  in  the  trouble  that  it 
brought.  It  was  the  opening  of  a  quarrel  with  the  Brit- 
ish colonies  in  America,  on  questions  which  the  wiser 
English  statesmen  were  most  unwilling  to  have  raised. 
For  some  years  there  had  been  growing  discontent  in 
the  colonies  with  the  working  of  the  Navigation  Act  (see 
section  295),  and  with  other  measures  that  repressed 
colonial  industries  and  trade.  So  long  as  the  French  had 
been  dangerous  neighbors  on  their  border,  the  colo- 
nists, needing  English  help,  were  naturally  more  patient 
of  what  they  regarded  as  ill-treatment  from  England 
than  they  became  after  the  French  were  driven  out.  At 
the  same  time,  the  heavy  cost  of  the  war  which  took 
Canada  from  France  caused  a  feeling  in  England  that 
the  colonies  ought  to  bear  some  share  of  the  burden  it 
left  behind.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  colonies  appear  to 
have  done  even  more  than  their  part  in  the  war,  having 
The  coio-  raised,  paid,  and  clothed,  according  to  the  show- 
warwith^  iug  of  Dr.  Fraukhu,  no  less  than  25,000  troops  ; 
France.  \y^i  ^]^[^  ^yg^g  overlooked,  and  they  were  thought 
to  owe  some  payment  as  English  subjects  for  continued 
protection  and  present  peace.  Colonial  governors  in  the 
past  had  often  urged  the  home  government  to  tax  the 
colonies  ;  but  no  ministry  until  Grenville's  had  been  will- 
ing to  make  the  attempt. 

Now  that  attempt  was  not  only  made  with  rudeness, 
but  it  was  preceded  by  an  irritating  act.  Hitherto  the 
New  Englanders  had  been  prudently  allowed  to  carry 
on   a  smuggling  traffic  with  the  Spanish  West   Indies, 


1 764-1 765] 


BACKWARD    STEPS. 


535 


exchanging  timber  and  fish  for  molasses  and  sugar,  out  of 
which  they  made  rum,  for  the  slave  trade  and  other  com- 
merce, and  they  depended  largely  on  this  for  the  means 
with  which  to  pay  for  English  goods.  No  attempt  had 
been  made  to  collect  impossible  duties  on  the  Spanish 
sugar  until  Grenville,  suddenly,  in  1 764,  set  in  motion  all 
the  machinery  of  the  law  for  putting  down  illicit  trade. 

Then  followed,  in  1765,  the  famous  Stamp  Act,  which 
required  all  legal  and  business  documents  in  America,  as 
well  as  books,  and  other  articles,  to  bear  stamps,  xhe 
sold  officially  for  the  purpose,  like  postage  stamp  Act. 
stamps.  It  is  a  mode  of  taxation  as  little  felt,  perhaps, 
as  any  ;  but  a  great  number  of  the  colonists  were  unwill- 
ing to  be  taxed  at  all  by  any  other 
leofislature  than  their  own.  Taxa- 
tion  without  representation  they 
denounced  as  a  constitutional 
wrong  which  English  subjects  had 
never  endured  ;  and,  so  long  as 
they  had  no  representatives  in  the 
English  Parliament,  they  resolved 
to  pay  no  tax  which  it  imposed. 
That  resolve  was  expressed  firmly 
and  soberly  by  a  congress  of  dele- 
gates   from  the   several    colonies, 

and  by  strong  resolutions  from  other  dignified  bodies  ; 
but  it  was  also  expressed  riotously,  sometimes  in  demon- 
strations that  were  a  shame  to  the  colonial  cause.  The 
most  impressive  proof  of  American  feeling  on  the  sub- 
ject was  given  by  the  great  number  of  people  who  joined 
in  pledges  to  use  no  English  goods  until  the  Act  was 
repealed. 

In  their  stand  against  the  Stamp  Act  the  Americans 
had  powerful  English  support.     Pitt  and  Lord  Camden 


A   STAMP. 


536  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1765-1766 

(a  great  lawyer)  agreed  with  them  in  denying  the  right 
of  FarUament  to  lay  taxes  upon  them,  and  gloried  in  the 

resistance  they  made.  Edmund  Burke,  the 
support  of    greatest  political  thinker  of  his  time,  while  he 

would  not  consider  it  as  a  question  of  "right," 
laid  bare  the  folly  of  the  claim.  Behind  those  eloquent 
leaders  was  a  great  body  of  English  opinion  that  stoutly 
opposed  the  arbitrary  dealings  of  the  government  with 
the  colonies  ;  and,  though  that  opinion,  with  all  other 
popular  sentiment,  was  feebly  represented  in  Parliament, 
it  was  strong  enough  to  bring  about  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  in  opposition  to  the  king  and  his  "friends." 

348.  The  Rockingham  Ministry.  Grenville  and  Bed- 
ford had  become  so  hateful  to  the  king,  though  he  liked 
their  American  policy,  that,  in  order  to  be  rid  of  them, 
he  had  (1765)  actually  taken  a  ministry  from  the  old 
Whigs.  Newcastle  was  in  it,  but  Lord  Rockingham,  a 
good  man,  of  moderate  ability,  much  influenced  by  Burke, 
who  was  his  secretary,  was  the  chosen  head.  Pitt,  stand- 
ing aloof  from  all  parties,  would  not  join,  and  without  him 

the  government  was  weak  ;  but,  early  in  1766, 
Of  the  the  ministers  carried  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp 

amp  c .  js^^^^  with  a  declaration,  however,  of  the  right  of 
Parliament  to  tax  the  colonies  and  to  command  them 
by  its  laws.  They  also  dropped  the  duty  on  molasses 
to  a  point  which  removed  another  cause  of  discontent. 

349.  Pitt  as  Earl  of  Chatham.  —  The  Ministry  called 
by  his  Name.  Rockingham  and  his  colleagues  were  dis- 
missed in  July  (1766),  and  Pitt  was  then  persuaded  to 
lend  the  power  of  his  name  to  a  cabinet  in  which  he 
could  do  little  work,  on  account  of  his  failing  health. 
He  could  not  bear  the  strain  of  leadership  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  so  he  unwisely  accepted  a  peerage,  as 
Earl  of  Chatham,  and  went  into  the  House  of  Lords. 


1766-1769]  BACKWARD    STEPS.  537 

By  this  mistake  he  threw  away  a  nobler  title  than  any 
king  could  confer,  and  the  people,  who  had  lovingly 
called  him  "  the  Great  Commoner,"  were  surprised  and 
shocked. 

Chatham's  health  was  soon  so  completely  broken  down 
that  he  could  give  no  attention  to  public  affairs.  Nom- 
inally the  Duke  of  Grafton  was  prime  minister  ;  actually 
the  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  Charles  Townshend, 
who  believed  in  ruling  the  colonies  with  a  high  hand, 
took  the  ministerial  lead.  Chatham's  ideas,  in  his  ab- 
sence, were  completely  thrust  aside,  and  the  policy  of 
Grenville  was  revived.  A  new  ineasure  for  raising 
revenue  in  America,  by  port  duties  on  paints,  Townshend 
glass,  paper,  and  tea,  was  carried  through,  and  '^^^^^s- 
rebellious  feeling  in  the  colonies  was  stirred  up  afresh. 
Before  the  effects  of  it  were  seen,  Townshend  died  (Sep- 
tember, 1767),  and  his  place  as  chancellor  of  the  ex- 
chequer was  filled  by  Lord  North.  From  that  time,  for 
fifteen  years,  the  king  was,  in  reality,  his  own  prime  min- 
ister, though  Grafton  kept  the  title  for  two  years  longer, 
and  though  Chatham's  name  was  still  on  the  cabinet 
list.  But  Chatham  recovered  in  1768,  sufficiently  to  un- 
derstand the  falsity  of  his  situation,  and  resigned. 

It  is  a.  fact  interesting  to  note,  that  while  the  king  and 
his  ministers  were  foolishly  preparing  to  throw  away  the 
better  part  of  the  dominion  of  Great  Britain  in  America, 
they  were  persuaded,  with  no  foresight  of  the 

ill  IjQ'f'T'Q  1 1  Q 

result,  to  send  out  (1769)  the  exploring  expedi-  and  New 
tion,  commanded  by  Captain  Cook,  which  took 
possession  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  and  added  to 
the  British  Empire  that  great  and  important  region  of  the 
world. 

350.  Wilkes  again.  The  royal  hand  in  government 
now  worked  mischief  on  both  sides  of  the  sea.     A  new 


53^  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1768-1774 

Parliament  was  elected  in  1768,  and  filled,  by  lavish  brib- 
ery, with  the  "king's  friends."  But  one  great  constitu- 
ency, that  of  Middlesex,  where  a  freer  vote  prevailed, 
elected  Wilkes,  who  had  returned  from  France  and  boldly 
appealed  to  the  people  for  support.  Parliament  expelled 
him,  on  the  demand  of  the  king,  and  he  was  thrown  into 
prison  —  an  act  which  set  London  and  half  the  kingdom 
aflame.  Middlesex  reelected  him,  and  again  Parliament 
refused  him  the  seat.  A  third  time  he  was  returned  by 
an  immense  majority,  and  then  the  party  of  the  king 
went  so  far  as  to  seat  the  defeated  candidate  in  his  place. 
The  excitement  and  riotous  tumult  produced  in  England 
was  even  greater  than  that  prevailing  in  America,  and 
Wilkes  triumphed  finally,  winning  his  seat  in  1774. 

The  most  famous  of  the  political  writings  of  this  ex- 
cited time  was  a  series  of  remarkable  letters,  signed 
Letters  of  "Juuius,"  the  authorship  of  which  has  never 
Junius.  come  to  light. ^  They  were  pubHshed  at  inter- 
vals from  November,  1768,  until  January,  1772. 

351.  Lord  North  and  the  Beginning  of  the  War  of 
American  Independence.  Early  in  1770,  Grafton  re- 
signed ;  Lord  North  was  made  prime  minister  in  name, 
but  acted  under  the  direction  of  the  king.  He  was  an 
amiable  man,  excellent  in  business  and  in  party  manage- 
ment, but  with  no  force  to  resist  the  king's  will  or  the 
drift  of  the  party  to  which  he  belonged. 

Grafton  had  succeeded  in  repealing  a  part  of  what 
were  called  the  Townshend  duties,  but  the  duty  on  tea 
had  been  kept,  in  order  to  maintain  the  right  which  the 
The  tax  on  colonists  denied,  and  it  did  all  the  mischief  that 
*®*"  a  whole  tariff  system  could  have  done.     Harsh 

measures  against   Boston,  and  the  quartering  of  troops 

'  The  opinion  that  the  Junius  Letters  were  written  by  Sir  Philip 
Francis  is  widely  accepted,  but  cannot  be  said  to  be  proved. 


I773-I776] 


BACKWARD   STEPS. 


539 


in  that  city,  failed  to  subdue  the  temper  of  its  people, 
and  when  tea  ships  arrived  (1773)  their  cargoes  were 
thrown  overboard  by  disguised  men.  From  other  ports 
the  tea  ships  were  driven  away,  or  not  allowed  to  land 
their  freight. 

Then  came  acts  of  retaliation  by  Parliament  (1774), 
closing  the  port  of 
Boston,  changing 
the  government  of 
Massachusetts,  and 
forbidding  public 
meetings,  while 
General  Gage  was 
sent  with  troops  to 
put  them  in  force. 
A  "  Continental 
Congress "  of  the 
colonies,  assembled 
at  Philadelphia, 

made  the  cause  of 
Massachusetts  the 
common  cause  of 
all,  and  when,  in 
April,  1775,  the 
king's  soldiers  at 
Boston  came  to  blows  with  the  farmers  and  villagers  of 
Lexington  and  Concord,  the  signal  was  given  for  a  gen- 
eral revolt. 

352.  The  King  and  the  Nation  in  the  American 
War.  After  hostilities  were  actually  begun,  and  espe- 
cially after  the  thirteen  colonies  had  issued  a  solemn 
Declaration  of  Independence  (July  4,  1776),  the  fighting 
temper  and  the  national  spirit  which  armed  opposition 
excites  ranged  the  feeling  of  a  large  majority  of  the  P.ng- 


LORD    NORTH. 


540  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1776-17S2 

lish  people,  without  doubt,  in  support  of  what  was  com- 
monly called  "  the  King's  War."  But  there  was  always 
a  strong  Whig  party  that  condemned  it  with  no  reserve  ; 
and  a  far  larger  party  began  soon  to  grow  urgent  for 
efforts  to  end  it,  by  every  concession  except  independ- 
ence, which  not  many  of  the  colonists  had  originally 
desired.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that,  if  English* 
public  sentiment  could  have  had  its  way,  Chatham  would 
have  been  called  to  the  head  of  the  government,  at  an 
early  stage  of  the  American  conflict,  to  exert  his  vast 
influence  in  both  countries  for  peace.  Lord  North  was 
urgent  for  the  experiment  ;  but  the  king  would  not  con- 
sent. 

It  was  the  blind  obstinacy  of  King  George,  more  than 
any  and  all  states  of  feeling  among  his  subjects,  that  car- 
ried EnHand  into  conflict  with  her  children  in 

The  atti-  .  •  1      1  •  ^^     ^  ^       ^   - 

tudeofthe  America,  and  that  gave  an  irreconcilable  bitter- 
ness  to  the  strife.  With  a  Parliament  that  had 
sold  its  votes  to  him  for  pensions  and  profitable  offices, 
and  with  ministers  who  had  no  will  of  their  own,  he  man- 
aged the  doings  of  government  in  his  own  way. 

353.  War  with  France,  Spain,  and  Holland.  — 
Armed  Neutrality.  In  1778,  France  entered  into  alli- 
ance with  the  now  "  United  States  of  America  ;  "  Spain 
joined  the  alliance  in  the  following  year  ;  and,  in  1780, 
the  Dutch  ranged  themselves  on  the  same  side.  In  the 
latter  year  a  league  of  "  Armed  Neutrality  "  was  formed 
among  the  nations  of  northern  Europe,  which  crippled 
the  efforts  of  England  to  break  up  the  trade  of  her  ene- 
mies, and  they  pressed  her  hard  on  every  side.  America 
was  helped  to  freedom  by  the  combination,  but  it  failed 
to  overthrow  the  British  lordship  of  the  sea.  In  two 
great  battles,  with  a  Spanish  fleet  in  1780  and  with  a 
French    fleet   in   1782,  Admiral   Rodney  confirmed  the 


1767-1782]  BACKWARD    STEPS.  •       541 

naval    supremacy  of    England    by  the  victories  that  he 
won. 

354.  King  George's  Failure.  When  George  III.,  in 
the  spring  of  1782,  accepted  the  resignation  of  Lord 
North,  gave  office  to  a  Whig  cabinet,  under  Rocking- 
ham, and  consented  to  negotiations  for  peace,  he  was 
not  only  yielding  to  the  failure  of  a  false  colonial  policy, 
and  to  the  loss  of  a  great  dominion  in  the  western  world, 
but  he  was  bowing  to  the  defeat  of  the  last  attempt 
of  an  English  king  to  act  his  own  will  in  the  government 
of  his  realm.  He  had  not  tried,  like  the  Tudors  and  the 
Stuarts,  to  wrench  away  the  sovereignty  of  Parliament, 
but  he  had  bribed  that  degenerate  body  to  betray  to  him 
its  powers,  and  he  had  made  its  ministers  his  tools.  It 
was  the  last  experiment  in  dictatorial  kingship  that  could 
be  tried,  and  it  had  come  disastrously  to  shame. 

There  was  yet  to  be  half  a  century  before  Parliament 
would  represent  the  people  ;  but  so  much  of  the  national 
will  as  it  stood  for  was  now  sovereign  in  reality,  once 
more,  and  the  king  again  became  that  figure  of  stately 
ceremony  which  English  kings  and  queens  must  content 
themselves  with  being. 

355.  Home  Measures  of  the  Ministry  of  Lord  North. 
In  matters  at  home,  the  government  had  done  little  of 
note  since  the  king  took  control.  It  had  failed  in  an 
attempt,  made  in  1771,  to  stop  the  reporting  of  debates 
in  Parliament ;  and,  though  never  formally  authorized, 
the  freedom  of  reporting  was  never  questioned  again. 

The  best  act  of  the  period  was  one  that  repealed  a  few 
of   the   most  atrocious  anti-Catholic  laws  ;  but  it  gave 
rise  to  fearful  riots,  by  ignorant  mobs  which  found  their 
leader   in    a    Scotch    nobleman.   Lord    George  Gordon 
Gordon,  who  was  incapable  of  comprehending  ^^°*^- 
the  wickedness  of  what  he  did.     For  four  days,  in  June, 


542  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1775-1785 

1780,  London  was  at   the  mercy  of  the  mobs,  and  the 
pillage  and  destruction  of  property  was  immense. 

356.  Ireland.  The  example  of  America  and  the 
struggle  in  which  England  was  engaged  with  many 
enemies  had  moved  the  Irish  to  demand  redress  for  the 
more  grievous  of  their  wrongs.  The  government  had 
permitted  volunteers  to  be  raised  in  Ireland,  to  repel 
French  invasion,  and  soon  found  itself  confronted  by  no 
less  than  60,000  well  organized  men,  who  backed  the 
call  for  certain  measures  of  relief.  In  the  circumstances 
there  was  little  thought  of  refusal,  and,  in  1780  and  1782, 
Measures  ^^ts  were  passed  which  yielded  more  freedom 
of  relief.  ^^  Irish  commerce,  gave  independence  to  the 
Irish  Parliament,  abrogated  the  Poynings  Law  (see  sec- 
tion 125),  and  repealed  the  worst  of  the  acts  by  which 
Catholics  were  oppressed.  But  Catholics  (the  majority 
of  the  Irish  people)  were  still  unrepresented  in  the  Irish 
Parliament,  and  that  assembly  was  only  corrupted  and  its 
partisan  bigotry  inflamed  by  the  independence  it  acquired. 

357.  India  under  Warren  Hastings.  The  French, 
by  alliance  with  hostile  natives,  had  made  new  attempts 
against  the  English  in  India  during  the  war ;  but  the 
latter  were  firm  in  their  footing  at  its  close.  They  had 
withstood  their  most  formidable  enemy,  Hyder  Ali,  the 
able  chief  of  Mysore,  with  all  the  help  that  France  could 
give  him,  and  their  rule  and  their  influence  were  advan- 
cing year  by  year. 

By  an  act  of  1775,  the  political  government  of  this 
dominion  in  the  east  was  transferred  from  the  directors 
of  the  East  India  Company  to  a  governor-general  and 
council,  approved  l5y  the  crown.  The  governor-general 
from  that  time  until  1785  was  Warren  Hastings,  a  man 
of  supreme  ability,  to  whom,  after  Clive,  the  English  in 
India  owed  their  astonishing  grasp  of  wealth  and  power. 


1775-1785]  BACKWARD    STEPS.  543 

Neither  Clive  nor  Hastings,  nor  many  among  their  coun- 
trymen who  sought  fortune  in  India,  had  scrupled  as 
to  the  means  by  which  riches  were  gathered  and  feeble 
states  were  brought  under  their  control.  The  natives 
had  been  plundered  and  wronged  by  more  methods  of 
oppression  than  ever  came  to  light.  But  it  is  now  known 
that  powerful  enemies  laid  more  than  his  just  share  of  ill- 
fame  upon  Warren  Hastings,  for  the  dark  crimes  of  those 
days  in  Hindustan.     He  came  home  to  face  im- 

1  11  r  r         •    1        •       Trial  of 

peachment  and  the  most   famous  or   trials,  in  warren 
Westminster  Hall,  with  the  eloquence  of  Burke,     ^^  ^^^^' 
Fox,  and  Sheridan  combined  against  him,  and  to  wait 
eight  years  for  the  acquittal  that  came  at  last. 

358.  The  Shelburne  Ministry  and  the  Coalition, 
Lord  Rockingham  died  before  the  conclusion  of  the 
treaties  which  (i 782-1 783)  acknowledged  the  independ- 
ence of  the  United  States  and  made  peace  with  France, 
Holland,  and  Spain.  His  place  was  taken  by  the  Earl  of 
Shelburne  ;  but  Shelburne's  Whig  rival,  Charles  James 
Fox,  went  into  alliance  against  him  with  the  Tory  leader. 
Lord  North,  and  early  in  1783  he  was  forced  to  resign. 
The  Coalition  ministry,  as  it  was  called,  then  formed  by 
Fox  and  North,  was  obnoxious  to  both  the  people  and 
the  king.  It  controlled  a  large  majority  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  but  the  king's  influence  defeated  it  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  on  a  bill  to  change  the  government  of 
India,  and  then  events  took  a  very  surprising  course. 
The  Coalition  ministry  was  dismissed  (December,  1783), 
and  a  younger  William  Pitt,  son  of  Lord  Chatham  (who 
died  in  1778),  was  called  by  the  king  to  the  helm  of  state. 

359.  The  Ministry  of  the  Younger  Pitt.  William 
Pitt  the  younger  was  but  twenty-four  years  of  age  when 
he  boldly  undertook  to  lead  a  ministry  and  to  conduct 
the  government,  in  the  face  of  a  large  hostile  majority 


544 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1783-1784 


in  the  House  of  Commons,  controlled  by  its  ablest 
managers  and  debaters,  Fox  and  North.  For  weeks 
he  was  beaten  in  every  vote ;  but  the  rule  that  a  beaten 
ministry  must  resign  was  not  yet  fixed  in  practice,  and 
Pitt  held  his  ground.  Public  opinion  grew  fast  in  his 
favor  and  made  itself  felt.  Time-serving  members,  who 
suspected  that  he  would  win,  came  over  to  him,  until  in 
March  he  had  broken  down  the  opposing  majority,  and 
then  Parliament  was  dissolved.     The  ensuing  elections 

were  carried  over- 
whelmingly in  his  fa- 
vor, and  Parliament 
became  obedient  to 
the  young  prime 
minister,  rather 

than  to  the  king. 

Pitt,   like  his    fa- 
ther, made  a  party 
of    his    own.       He 
drew  the  Tories  into 
it,  and   came  to  be 
classed  with  them  ; 
but  his  Toryism  was 
liberal    and    broad. 
One    of    his    early 
undertakings         as 
prime  minister  was 
to  besfin    a  '  reform 
of    the    representa- 
tion in  Parliament  ;  another  was  to  give  free  trade  with 
England  to  the  Irish  ]  a  third  was  to  bring  the 
villainies   of   the    slave   trade   under   restraint.^ 
mans  ip.      jj^ggg  were  all  plans  of  statesmanship  too  high 
in  principle  for  the  time,  and  he  had  to  put  them  aside. 


WILLIAM    PITT,    THi.    YOUNGER. 


Pitt's 
States 


1784-178S]  BACKWARD    STEPS.  A-^.-  545 

But  he  had  success  in  simpHfying  the  cumbrous  duties 
and  regulations  that  burdened  English  trade.  He  also 
passed  an  India  bill  (1784),  which  organized  the  East 
India  Company's  government  as  it  remained  until  1858. 

360.  The  King's  Loss  of  Mind.  In  the  fall  of  1788, 
a  mental  disorder  which  had  shown  itself  slightly  in 
King  George,  for  a  short  time,  in  1765,  reappeared  more 
seriously,  and  he  was  deranged  until  the  following  spring. 
A  bill  to  give  the  regency  of  the  kingdom  to  the  Prince 
of  Wales  was  kept  in  Parliament  so  long,  by  debate  over 
the  restrictions  that  should  be  put  on  the  powers  of  the 
prince,  that  the  king  recovered  his  senses  before  it  came 
into  effect.  France  at  that  hour  was  on  the  eve  of  her 
great  Revolution,  from  which  England  and  all  the  world 
would  soon  be  feeling  profound  effects,  and  the  trying 
period  of  Pitt's  career  was  about  to  begin. 

361.  The  Epoch  of  Mechanic  Invention  and  Indus- 
trial Revolution.  England,  itself,  at  this  time,  was  en- 
tering upon  a  revolution  very  different  from  that  which 
impended  in  France,  but  the  silent  effects  of  which  were 
of  even  greater  moment  to  mankind.  There  exists  an  im- 
mense  difference  between  the  methods  and  the  organiza- 
tion of  industry  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  those  that 
were  practised  before.  It  is  a  difference  that  has  been 
brought  about  by  mechanical  inventions  of  labor-saving 
machinery,  and  by  scientific  discoveries,  which  have  in- 
creased the  power  of  man  to  produce  things  for  the  satis- 
faction of  his  wants.  Such  invention  began,  of  course, 
when  civilization  began  ;  but  it  went  forward  very  creep- 
ingly  through  all  the  centuries  until  the  last  third  of  the 
eighteenth.  Then  a  sudden,  tremendous  leap  in  it  nearly 
broke  all  connection  between  the  ways  in  which  the  work 
of  the  world  was  done  before  and  the  ways  in  which  it 
has  since  been  done. 


546 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1764-1790 


It  was  principally  in  England  that  the  revolutionary 
leap  of  inventive  enterprise  was  made,  and,  consequently, 
England  won,  then,  the  industrial  as  well  as  the  com- 
The  great  Hicrcial  leadership  of  the  world.  Hargreav^e,  in 
inventors,  ly^^^  ArkwHght,  in  1 769,  Crompton,  in  1779, 
invented  spinning  machinery,  and  Cartwright,  in   1784, 

invented  a  pow- 
er-loom, which 
ended  the  hand- 
spinning  >  and 
hand-weaving  of 
the  past  ;  James 
Watt,  in  I  yy6, 
made  the  steam 
engine  a  cheap 
and  practicable 
source  of  power 
for  moving  such 
machines ;  Smea- 
ton,  Cort,  and 
others,  between 
1760  and  1790, 
improved  and 
cheapened  the 
making  of  Eng- 
lish iron,  and  Brindley  began  the  building  of  many  canals, 
for  internal  trade,  while  Arthur  Young,  in  that  period 
and  after,  was  laboriously  teaching  better  agriculture  to 
the  tillers  of  the  soil. 

While  labor  was  being  thus  armed  with  new  powers, 
and  better  highways  were  being  opened  to  trade. 

Smith's  o  y  01 

"Wealth of  a  book  appeared  (1776),  entitled  "The  Wealth 

of  Nations,"  by  Adam  Smith,  which  taught  the 

English  people  to  see  that  when  labor  is  most  free  to 


watt's  steam  engine  in  1780. 


1789]  BACKWARD    STEPS.  547 

produce,  and  to  exchange  what  it  produces,  with  least 
interference  from  the  makers  of  law,  the  result  of  general 
wealth  is  greatest  and  most  sure.  It  was  a  truth  learned 
slowly,  but  with  extraordinary  effect  in  the  end. 

So  England,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, was  passing  the  beginnings  of  a  momentous  revo- 
lution within  herself.  It  was  a  revolution  as  much 
social  as  economic.  It  gave  rise  to  the  factory  system, 
to  huge  manufacturing  establishments,  to  powerful  com- 
binations of  capital,  to  new  and  greater  inequalities  of 
wealth.  It  built  up  cities,  increased  their  popu-  ^j^^  gQ^.-^^ 
lation  enormously,  and  created  in  them  a  class  ^^evoiution. 
of  workingmen  easily  stirred  by  ideas,  easily  combined, 
and  certain  to  become  a  power  in  the  state.  It  made 
the  region  of  coal  and  iron,  in  the  north,  the  most 
thickly  peopled  part  of  the  land.  It  raised  up  an  interest 
in  the  country  which  soon  outweighed  the  landowning 
interest,  that  had  ruled  it  before.  It  worked  great  and 
rapid  changes  in  the  structure  of  English  society,  and  in 
its  whole  character  and  tone. 

TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND  RESEARCH  QUESTIONS. 

342.  The  Ideas  of  George  III. 

Topics. 

1.  The  king  an  obstacle  to  ministerial  government. 

2.  Character  of  George. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  765,  766;  Bright,  iii.  1035,  1036; 
Green,  761,  762;  Ransome,  217;  Guest,  532,  533;  Roseberry, 
Pitt,  10-14;   H.  Taylor,  ii.  477,  478. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  doctrine  did  the  Whigs  stand 
for?  (2.)  How  firmly  had  they  established  their  power?  (3.) 
What  would  be  the  natural  effect  upon  an  arbitrary  king  of  the 
exercise  of  such  power  ?  (4.)  What  advantage  over  the  previous 
kings  of  his  house  did  George  III,  have  in  achieving  popularity  ? 
(5.)  Compare  his  character  with  that  of  Charles  I.  (Gardiner, 
iii.  765)  ;  with  James  II.     (Green,  761.) 


54S  BACKWARD    STEPS. 

343.  Government  by  the  "King's  Friends." 

Topic. 

I.  Lord  Bute  and  the  new  Tory  party. 

Reference.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  766-768. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  To  whom  had  the  Tory  party  been 
looking  as  the  rightful  king  ?  (2.)  What  event  had  put  an  end 
to  those  hopes  .''  (3.)  Why  was  it  natural  for  the  political  ideas 
of  the  Tories  to  be  less  progressive  than  those  of  the  Whigs? 
(Green,  761,  762.)  (4.)  What  can  be  said  of  the  condition  of 
Parliament  at  the  time  of  Bute  ?     (Gardiner,  iii.  767,  768.) 

344.  The  Peace  of  Paris. 
Topic. 

I.  English  gains  by  the  treaty. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1040. 

345.  The  Grenville  Ministry. 
Topics. 

1.  Bute  obliged  to  resign. 

2.  Grenville's  attitude  toward  the  king. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1041,  1042. 

346.  Persecution  of  John  Wilkes  and  the  Newspaper 

Press. 
Topics. 

1.  Grenville's  attack  on  the  freedom  of  the  press. 

2.  Government  persecution  of  John  Wilkes. 

3.  Wilkes's  character  and  the  source  of  his  popularity. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  769,  770,  774,  775,  779  ;  Green,  767, 

768,  773,    774 ;  Colby,  253-256 ;  Ransome,   222-224,    239,    240  ; 
Montague,   179-183;  Taswell-Langmead,   726,    736-738;  Lecky, 
vol.  iii.  chs.  x.,  xi. 
Research  Question.  —  (i.)    What   is  the  objection   to   general 
warrants?     (Gardiner,  iii.  769-770;  Montague,  179.) 

347.  The  Quarrel  with  American  Colonies. 

Topics. 

1.  Cause  of  American  discontent. 

2.  English  view  of  the  situation. 

3.  American  smuggling  and  Grenville's  action. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      549 

4.  The  Stamp  Act  and  American  opposition  aroused. 

5.  English  supporters  of  the  Americans. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1045-1048. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  would  there  be  a  natural  ten- 
dency after  the  French  and  Indian  War  to  criticise  the  mother 
country?  (Green,  760.)  (2.)  What  ground  was  there  on  which 
the  colonies  could  unite?  (Bright,  iii.  1056,  1057.)  (3.)  Why  did 
the  colonijes  submit  to  trade  restrictions  and  object  lo  the  Stamp 
Act?  (4.)  Compare  the  raising  of  "ship  money"  in  the  time  of 
Charles  I.  with  the  Stamp  Act.  (5.)  Compare  the  minds  of  Pitt 
and  Burke.     (Gardiner,  iii.  773.) 

348.  The  Rockingham  Ministry. 
Topics. 

1.  The  new  ministry. 

2.  Repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1050-1052. 

349.  Pitt  as  Earl  of  Chatham.  —  The  Ministry  called 

by  his  Name. 
Topics. 

1.  Pitt  accepts  a  peerage. 

2.  Townshend  duties. 

3.  Lord  North  and  the  king. 

4.  Explorations  of  Captain  Cook. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1053,  1054. 

350.  Wilkes  again. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Middlesex  election. 

2.  Contest  between  Wilkes  and  the  king's  party. 

3.  Letters  of  Junius. 

References.  —  Gardiner,   iii.    'jyj^-yjC)  •,  Bright,   iii.    1057,    1058; 

Green,  768,  774;  Colby,  256-258  ;  Lecky,  iii.  253-277. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  What  good  came  out  of  the  Wilkes 

struggle  ?     (Gardiner,  iii.  789.)    (2.)  Compare  the  agitation  about 

the    Middlesex  elections  to  the  agitation   which  brought  about 

the  American  Revolution.     (Gardiner,  iii.  794.) 


550  BACKWARD    STEPS. 

351.  Lord  North  and  the  Beginning   of  the  War  of 

American  Independence. 
Topics. 

1.  North's  character. 

2.  Retention  of  the  tea  duty  and  the  action  of  Boston. 

3.  RetaHatory  measures  of  ParHament  and  their  consequences. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  776-783. 

352.  The  King  and  the  Nation  in  the  American  War. 

Topics. 

1.  Attitude  of  the  English  public  toward  the  war. 

2.  Desire  for  peace  and  opposition  by  the  king. 
Reference.  —  Green,  781,  782. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  many  years  had  elapsed  since 
the  French  and  Indian  War?  (2.)  How  well  fitted  financially  was 
England  to  go  to  war  again  ?  (3.)  How  did  she  get  an  army  to- 
gether ?  (4.)  What  was  the  effect  of  the  employment  of  these 
soldiers  upon  the  colonists  ? 

353.  War  with  France,  Spain,  and  Holland.  —  Armed 

Neutrality. 
Topics. 

1.  Formation  of  the  alliance. 

2.  What  it  achieved. 

References.  —  Green,  782  ;  Bright,  iii.  1099. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  Give  reasons  in  each  case  respec- 
tively to  show  why  France,  Spain,  and  Holland  were  ready  to 
fight  England.  (2.)  Show  from  the  terms  of  the  alliance  that 
France's  only  motive  was  revenge.  (Bright,  iii.  1083,  1084.)  (3.) 
What  united  all  Europe  against  England?  (Gardiner,  iii.  792.) 
(4.)  What  power  of  Great  Britain  enabled  her  against  such  odds 
to  keep  at  least  a  part  of  her  dominions. 

354.  King  George's  Failure. 
Topics. 

1.  Significance  of  the  king's  submission. 

2.  The  real  sovereignty  from  that  time. 
Reference. —  Bright,  iii.  1104,  1112. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  had  been  the  way  in  which 
the  sovereign  attached  men  to  his  cause  and  rewarded  their  ser- 
vice?    (2.)  What  was  the  significant  feature  of  Burke's  reform 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.      55 1 

bill  passed  at  this  time?  (Gardiner,  iii.  795.)  (3.)  What  treaty 
ended  the  American  Revolution?  (4.)  What  disposition  was 
made  of  Florida  by  this  treaty  and  was  it  a  boon  to  the  colonies  ? 

356.  Home  Measures  of  the  Ministry  of  Lord  North. 
Topics. 

1.  Establishment  of  the  freedom  of  the  press. 

2.  Gordon  riots. 

REFERE^•CE.  —  Bright,  iii.  1092,  1093. 

356.  Ireland. 
Topic. 

I.  The  Irish  demands  and  the  concessions  made. 
Reference.  —  Traill,  v.  505  sqq. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Describe  the  political  condition  of 

Ireland  at  this  time.     (Gardiner,  iii.  796.)     (2.)  What  did  Pitt 

attempt  to  do  for  Ireland?     (Green,  817,  818.) 

357.  India  under  Warren  Hastings. 
Topics. 

1.  Suppression  of  French  attempts  upon  India. 

2.  Change  in  the  government;  rule  of  Warren  Hastings. 

3.  Impeachment  and  trial  of  Hastings. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  801-806  ;  Macaulay's  Essay  on 
Warren  Hastings  ;  Bright,  iii.  1 130-1140. 

358.  The  Shelburne  Ministry  and  the  Coalition. 

Topics. 

1.  Lord  Rockingham's  death  and  the  Shelburne  ministry. 

2.  Coalition  ministry  of  Fox  and   North,  and  the  appointment 

of  William  Pitt  the  younger. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  11 1 1,  1 1 12. 

359.  The  Ministry  of  the  Younger  Pitt. 

Topics. 

1.  Pitt  and  his  first  experiences. 

2.  Growth  of  his  support. 

3.  His  party  and  his  measures. 
Reference.  —  Green,  790-795. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Compare  the  younger  Pitt  with  his 
father.  (Gardiner,  iii.  799.)  (2.)  What  influence  contributed  to 
his  greatness?     (Green,  793.) 


552  BACKWARD    STEPS. 

360.  The  King's  Loss  of  Mind. 

Topics. 

1.  The  Regency  bill. 

2.  Approach  of  the  French  Revolution. 

361.  The   Epoch  of  Mechanic   Invention  and   Indus- 
trial Revolution. 

Topics. 

1.  Industrial  progress  up  to  close  of  eighteenth  century. 

2.  Great  inventions  at  this  time. 

3.  "  The  Wealth  of  Nations." 

4.  Nature  of  this  social  and  industrial  revolution. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  lii.  810,  813-818;  Bright,  iii.  1150,  1228; 

Green,  791-793  ;  Colby,  268-270,  278-281  ;  Cunningham  &  Mc- 
Arthur,  4,  131,  132,  163,  198,  201,  202,  219-225  ;  Gibbins,  143, 
181,  189;  Traill,  v.  305-321,  330-332,  455-474,  481  ;  Lecky,  iii. 
423,  425,  vi.  206-225. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  process  assisted  at  this  time 
in  making  an  age  of  manufacture?  (Green,  792.)  (2.)  In  what 
part  of  England  were  deposits  of  coal  and  iron  found  close  to- 
gether ?  (3.)  Where,  then,  would  manufactures  naturally  arise  ? 
(4.)  What  invention  in  coal  mining  assisted  manufactures?  (5.) 
What  effect  would  this  new  departure  have  on  the  distribution 
of  population  ?  (6.)  What  used  to  be  the  most  densely  popu- 
lated portion  of  England  ?  (7.)  Where  is  the  densest  population 
to-day?  (8.)  What  old  idea  of  wealth  did  the  trading  classes 
still  hold?     (Green,  793.) 


CHAPTER   XXIV. 


CONFLICT    WITH    THE    FRENCH    REVOLUTION. 


George  III.     1789-1800. 

362.  English  Attitude  toward  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. The  early  movements  of  the  great  revolt  in 
France  were  watched  with  ardent  sympathy  by  many  in 
England,  some  hoping  for  a  republic  to  come  from  it, 
and  some  for  a  consti- 
tutional monarchy  like 
their  own.  Even  Pitt 
seems  to  have  shared 
the  latter  hope  for  a 
time.  Edmund  Burke, 
on  the  contrary,  looked 
with  dark  forebodings 
from  the  first  on  the 
action  of  the  French, 
and  used  all  his  powers 
to  rouse  feeling  against 
them.  Fox,  with  a 
considerable  Whig  fol- 
lowing, championed 
the  revolution  long  af- 
ter the  mad  violence 
began  (see  page  483),  which  shocked  and  frightened  most 
sober-minded  men.  There  was  something  of  a  party  in 
the  country  that  applauded  the  doctrines  and  the  doings 
of  the  extreme  Jacobins ;  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have 


EDMUND    BURKE. 


554  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1789-1793 

been  formidable  at  any  time.  Generally,  from  the  day 
that  the  Jacobins  won  control  of  the  Revolution,  English 
sympathy  with  it  was  repelled.  ^^  j/^ .  ^jVh 

363.  Tory  Reaction.  The  repulsion  and  alarm  ex- 
cited by  the  ferocity  of  the  Jacobin  spirit,  even  before 
its  ''reign  of  terror"  began,  produced  an  unfortunate 
revival  of  extreme  Toryism  in  the  temper  and  sentiment 
of  the  classes  which  ruled  England  in  that  day.  A  liberal 
disposition  toward  ideas  of  political  and  social  improve- 
ment which  had  been  growing  up  was  suddenly  beaten 
down,  and  even  Pitt,  who  had  been  eager  for  parliamen- 
tary reform,  had  no  longer  any  ear  for  proposals  of 
change.  What  was  worse,  he  allowed  himself  to  be 
driven  by  the  Tory  panic  of  1792-93  into  measures  of 
violence  against  a  few  English  Jacobinical  or  republican 
societies,  which  do  not  seem  to  have  been  strong  enough 
at  any  time  to  cause  reasonable  alarm. 

364.  The  War  with  Revolutionary  Prance.  But  Pitt 
had  no  wish  to  interfere  with  events  in  France,  and  he 
strove  to  keep  England  out  of  the  war  which  the  violent 
master-spirits  in  that  country  were  forcing  upon  their 
neighbors.  It  was  from  France,  not  England,  that  the 
declaration  of  war  came,  in  February,  1793  ;  and  the 
declaration  was  made  because  French  republicans  were 
mistakenly  led  to  suppose  that  England  was  eager  for  a 
revolutionary  rising  like  their  own. 

For  a  year  past,  France  had  been  at  war  with  Austria 
and  Prussia,  and  now  a  coalition  of  those  powers  with 
England,  Holland,  and  Spain  was  formed.  England's 
part  in  the  war  which  followed  was  performed  mainly,  as 
usual,  by  her  navy  and  her  money,  and  nothing  but  the 
TheCoaii-  great  subsidies  that  she  paid  them  kept  the 
^^°^'  armies  of  her  allies  in  the  field  ;  for  the  French 

had  amazing  success.     British   forces  were  joined  with 


I79I-I795]  CONFLICT  WITH  THE   REVOLUTION.  555 

Austrian,  Prussian,  and  Dutch  in  the  defence  of  Holland, 
and  shared  defeat  with  them  ;  but  where  British  and 
French  fleets  met,  as  they  did  on  the  French  coast,  in 
June,  1794,  the  victory  was  sure  to  be  on  the  British 
side.  The  French  were  then  nearly  powerless  at  sea. 
Their  distant  colonies  were  at  the  mercy  of  the  English 
navy,  which  seized  them,  one  by  one,  during  the  year 
1795.  The  colonies  of  Holland,  then  subject  to  France, 
—  Cape  Colony,  Ceylon,  and  the  Spice  Islands,  —  suf- 
fered the  same  fate. 

In  1795,  Prussia  and  Spain  deserted  the  Coalition  and 
Holland  had  been  overcome.  In  the  following  spring, 
the  Terrorists  in  France  having  been  overthrown  and  the 
government  of  the  Directory  set  up,  proposals  of  peace 
were  made  by  England,  and  refused.  They  were  renewed 
a  few  months  later,  and  again  they  failed.  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  had  begun  his  astonishing  campaign  against 
the  Austrians  in  Italy  (see  page  483),  and  great  plans 
for  striking  England  through  Ireland  had  been  formed. 

365.  Ireland.  Ireland  had  gained  nothing  by  the 
independence  given  to  its  Parliament ;  possibly  its  condi- 
tion had  been  made  even  worse.  The  Parliament  was 
an  odious  body,  composed  mostly  of  men  who  bought 
their  seats,  or  who  held  them  subject  to  a  landlord's 
commands.  It  did  not  represent  even  the  Protestants 
of  Ireland  ;  the  Catholics  had  no  voice  in  it  at  all.  It 
executed  the  will  of  a  small,  utterly  selfish  class.  The 
Presbyterians  of  Ulster  suffered  scarcely  less  than  the 
Catholics  of  Connaught  ;  and  a  movement  was  started  in 
their  ranks  to  form  a  Protestant  and  Catholic  combina- 
tion for  accomplishing  some  reform.  This  gave  rise  to 
an  association,  called  the  Society  of  United  Irishmen, 
founded  in  1791  by  a  Protestant  barrister  of  Belfast, 
Theobald  Wolfe  Tone,  which  sought  to  obtain  a  better 


55^  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1793-^797 

representation  of  the  people  in  Parliament,  by  strictly 
legal  means.  li^^-^-'-^-^   4-tnc^l_^ 

Pitt  saw  the  need  of  answering  these  demands  in  Ire- 
land, and  he  forced  its  Parliament,  in  1793,  to'jpass  an  act 
which  allowed  Catholics  to  vote  for  members  of  Parlia- 
ment, but  still  barred  them  from  seats  in  it,  and  from  of- 
fices and  places  of  trust.  He  had  more  in  contemplation, 
and  attempted  it  two  years  later ;  but  the  bigotry  of  the 
king  and  of  the  Tories  who  surrounded  Pitt  was  roused, 
and  they  tied  his  hands.  Then  Wolfe  Tone  and  other 
Irish  political  reformers  who  had  worked  in  lawful  ways 
became  conspirators,  in  sheer  despair.  The  United  Irish- 
men became  a  secret  revolutionary  society,  and  Tone, 
compelled  to  fly,  made  his  way  to  France,  and  there  per- 
suaded the  Directory  to  send  the  able  General  Hoche, 
with  a  o^reat  fleet  and  ii;,ooo  or  20,000  men, 

The  .  ,  ^     -  T, 

French  With  amis  for  40,000  more,  to  liberate  Ireland 
from  English  rule.  The  expedition  sailed  from 
Brest  in  December,  1796,  only  to  be  scattered,  as  the 
Spanish  Armada  had  been,  by  a  storm,  and  it  returned 
with  nothing  done.  But  a  reign  of  terror  had  been  pro- 
duced in  Ireland  by  the  excitements  of  the  time.  Ris- 
ings and  outrages  committed  by  some  of  the  Catholic 
peasantry  were  retaliated  with  a  cruelty  that  nobody  can 
defend,  and  a  state  of  civil  war  prevailed,  between  the 
Protestant  society  of  ''Orangemen,"  formed  in  1795,  and 
similar  societies  on  the  Catholic  side. 

Twice  in  1797,  the  French  government  renewed  its 
undertaking  of  an  invasion  of  Ireland,  or  England,  or 
both,  with  Spanish  and  Dutch  fleets  added  to  its  own. 
The  first  was  frustrated  by  Admiral  Jervis  and  Commo- 
dore Nelson,  who  defeated  the  Spanish  fleet,  in  Febru- 
ary, off  Cape  St.  Vincent,  and  drove  it  back  to  Cadiz ; 
the  second,  in  October,  was  ended  more  decisively  in  a 


I797-I79S]   CONFLICT  WITH   THE   REVOLUTION.         55/ 

great  fight  at  Campcrdown,  where  Admiral  Duncan  de- 
stroyed or  captured  most  of  the  Dutch  ships. 

•  iTT-iT'i  Camper- 

Hopeless  of  foreign  help,  the  United  Irishmen  down  sea 

then  planned  a  general  rising  on  their  own  part, 

to  take  place  in  May,  1798.     The  plot  was  betrayed,  the 

leaders  were  arrested  and  executed,  and  those  who  took 

arms  were  crushed  at  Vinegar  Hill  and  in  some  minor 

fights. 

366.  Distressed  State  of  England.  England  was 
now  in  a  state  of  great  distress.  The  cost  of  her  own 
army  and  navy,  the  enormous  subsidies  paid  to  her  allies, 
the  rapid  increase  of  debt,  the  closing  of  many  markets 
for  her  products,  combined  with  several  poor  harvests, 
brought  a  cruel  crisis  at  last.  The  country  was  drained 
of  money,  and  a  suspension  of  payments  in  coin  occurred, 
in  February,  1797,  which  lasted  for  twenty-  Mutiny  in 
two  years.  At  about  the  same  time  a  mutiny  ^^^^^et. 
broke  out  among  the  sailors  of  the  navy,  who  held  the 
very  life  of  the  nation  in  their  hands.  It  had  been 
caused  by  sore  grievances,  which  the  government  cor- 
rected promptly,  and  wise  treatment  overcame  it  almost 
before  the  enemies  of  England  knew  that  it  had  occurred. 

Bonaparte,  flushed  with  his  triumphs  in  Italy,  had  now 
planned  to  strike  England  in  the  east,  and  had  gone  to 
plant  the  forces  of  France  in  Egypt,  from  which  point 
they  might  hope  to  lend  aid  to  the  native  enemies  of  the 
English  in  Hindustan.  He  was  already  in  correspond- 
ence with  Tippoo,  the  son  and  successor  of  Hyder  Ali 
in  Mysore  (see  section  357),  and  his  plans  promised  well 
when,  in  May,  1798,  he  landed  an  army  in  Egypt  and 
mastered  that  country  in  a  single  fight.  But,  unless  he 
could  likewise  be  master  of  the  sea  between  Egypt  and 
France,  he  could  not  hope  to  make  his  project  succeed, 
and  that  mastery  was  snatched  from  him  by  the  great 


558 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.       [1798-1800 


Englisn  sea-captain,  Lord  Nelson,  who  attacked  and  de- 
Battie  of  stroyed  his  fleet  (August,  1 798),  in  Aboukir  Bay, 
the  Nile.      j-,g^j.  ^^q  ^f  ^j^g  mouths  of  the  Nile.     Bonaparte 

pushed  on  into  Syria,  but  was  stopped  at  Acre,  where  an 
English  fleet,  under  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  gave  such  help 
to  the  Turkish  garrison  that  it  held  the  town  until  he 
gave  up  the  siege  (April,  1799).  ^  f^w  weeks  later, 
Tippoo,  the  ally  he  intended  to  aid  in  India,  was  slain 
and  his  capital  taken  by  an  English  force. 

367.  The  Irish  Union,  and  the  Resignation  of  Pitt. 
Pitt  had  become  convinced  that  the  terrible  evils  and 
troubles  of  Ireland  could  be  cured  only  by  uniting  that 
kingdom  with  Great  Britain,  in  the  manner  of  the  union 

of  Scotland  with 
England,  under  one 
Parliament  and  one 
system  of  law.  He 
might  have  accom- 
plished the  cure  if 
he  had  been  able  to 
make  his  measure 
complete,  by  open- 
ing the  greater  Par- 
iRisH  FLAG  BEFORE   liamcnt  to  Cathollcs, 

and  by  emancipating 
them  generally  from  the  political  disabilities  under  which 
they  were  kept  ;  but  he  failed  in  that  part  of  his  plan. 
The  Act  of  Union  was  carried  through  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment, in  February,  1800,  by  corruption,  it  is  said,  and 
sanctioned  in  England  the  same  year.  "The  United 
Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  "  became  the  style 
of  the  British  realm  on  the  ist  day  of  January,  1801. 
But  when  Pitt  then  attempted  to  bring  forward  the  bill 
for  "  Catholic  emancipation,"  which  he  had  led  the  people 


THE    UNION   JACK. 


i8oi]         CONFLICT   WITH    THE   REVOLUTION.  559 

of  that  faith  to  expect,  he  found  himself  made  powerless 
once  more  by  the  immovable  bigotry  of  the  king  ;  where- 
upon he  resigned. 

TOPICS,   REFERENCES,  AND  RESEARCH  QUESTIONS. 

362.  English  Attitude  toward  the  French  Revolution. 

Topic. 

I.  Representative  attitudes  of  Pitt,  Burke,  and  Fox. 

References.  —  Green,  800-803.  Prison  reform:  Green,  740,  741  ; 
Colby,  261-264;  Traill,  V.  482-486,  vi.  230-233,  433-436  ;  Lscky, 
vi.  255-261. 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  Show  what  the  institution  of  feudal- 
ism had  to  do  in  preparation  for  the  French  Revolution.  (2.) 
Draw  a  parallel  between  England  and  France  in  modifying  feu- 
dalism and  in  finally  casting  it  off.  (Johnson,  N.  E.,  162-164.) 
(3.)  Give  some  description  of  the  condition  of  France.  (Green, 
797,  798,  800.)  (4.)  How  far  was  Louis  XIV.  responsible  for 
this  ?  (5.)  What  event  outside  of  France  quickened  the  out- 
break of  the  Revolution?  (Montague,  191.)  (6.)  What  intel- 
lectual influence  within  France  worked  to  the  same  end  ? 

363.  Tory  Reaction. 
Topics. 

1.  Revival  of  Toryism  due  to  French  Revolution. 

2.  Pitt's  part  in  the  reaction. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  825-828;  Traill,  v.  370-371;  Tas- 
well-Langmead,  y6^,  766.  Suspension  of  specie  payments : 
Gardiner,  iii.  835;  Bright,  iii.  1191-1193;  Gibbins,  172-174; 
Thursfield,  Pitt,  ch.  viii. ;  Bagehot.  Lombard  Street,  175-178; 
Gilbart  on  Banking,  i.  46-60;  Cunningham,  ii.  S5S~5S7' 

Research  Questions.  — (i.)  What  was  the  "  Reign  of  Terror"? 
(Guest,  543.)  (2.)  Why  did  the  English  consider  the  execution 
of  Louis  XVI.  of  France  worse  than  the  execution  of  Charles  I. 
of  England  ?  (3.)  What  novel  of  Dickens  describes  the  "  Reign 
of  Terror"?  (4.)  What  legislation  in  England  had  put  a  stop  to 
vindictive  imprisonment  ?  (5.)  What  effect  had  the  Terror  on 
this  act  ?     (Traill,  v.  490.) 

364.  The  War  with  Revolutionary  Prance. 
Topics. 

I.  Pitt's  policy. 


560  CONFLICT    WITH    THE    REVOLUTION 

2.  The  Coalition  and  British  success  on  the  sea. 

3.  Unsuccessful  overtures  for  peace. 
REFERE^XE.  —  Bright,  iii.  1167-1187. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  two  reasons  had  France  for 
making  war  on  other  nations?  (Gardiner,  iii.  824,  825.)  (2.) 
What  was  the  condition  of  Ireland  at  this  time  ?  (Gardiner,  iii. 
831-834;  Bright,  iii.  1 199-1204.) 

365.  Ireland. 

Topics. 

1.  State  of  Irish  representation. 

2.  The  Society  of  United  Irishmen. 

3.  Pitt's  attempt  at  relief  and  its  results. 

4.  Attempted  invasion  from  France  and  Irish  reign  of  terror. 

5.  Camperdown  sea  fight  and  United  Irishmen  crushed. 
References.  —  Rosebery,  Pitt,  ch.  xi. 

366.  Distressed  State  of  England. 
Topics. 

1.  Distress  in  England  and  mutiny  in  the  navy. 

2.  Bonaparte  in  Egypt  and  the  battle  of  the  Nile. 
References.  —  Gardiner,   iii.    835-838.      Nelson:   Gardiner,    iii. 

844,  845,  851-854;  Bright,  iii.  11 72,  1220,  1 232-1 234,  1 262-1 265  ; 
Colby,  281-284;  Mahan,  Life  of  Nelson;  Southey,  Life  of  Nel- 
son. 
Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  With  what  sort  of  money  did  Eng- 
land pay  her  allies?  (2.)  How  is  the  amount  of  coin  in  a  coun- 
try affected  by  foreign  payments  ?  (3.)  What  is  meant  by  sus- 
pending payment  in  coin?  (4.)  Has  this  ever  occurred  in  the 
United  States?  (5.)  When  ?  (6.)  What  is  the  effect  on  prices  of 
a  scarcity  of  money  ?  (7.)  What  sort  of  products  become  very 
dear  in  time  of  war  ?  (8.)  Who  suffer  most  from  this  ?  (9.)  Why 
did  Napoleon  attack  India  rather  than  Canada? 

367.  The  Irish  Union,  and  the  Resignation  of  Pitt. 
Topics. 

1.  Pitt's  plans  for  settling  Irish  troubles. 

2.  The  Act  of  Union  passed. 

3.  "  Cathohc  emancipation  "  bill  fails  and  Pitt  resigns. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  842;  Bright,  iii.    1199-1219,  1229, 

1 230 ;  Green,  81 1-818 ;    Rosebery,  Pitt,  chs.  xi.-xiii.  ;  Montague, 
186-188;  H.  Taylor,  ii.    514,  515;  May,  ii.  ch.  xvi. ;    Leek}-,  viii. 

394  «qq- 


SURVEY  OF  GENERAL  HISTORY. 

THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY. 

The  Transfori7iatio7i  of  the  World.  In  the  later  part  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  a  new  epoch  in  history  was  entered,  —  an 
epoch  marked  by  many  distinctions,  but  most  strikingly  by 
what  may  be  called  the  transformation  of  the  world.  The 
generations  before  that  time,  whether  ancient  or  modern,  had 
found  the  world  in  which  they  lived  much  the  same,  so  far  as 
concerns  the  common  conditions  of  life  ;  but  for  us  of  the 
present  age  it  has  been  utterly  transformed.  Its  distances 
mean  nothing  that  they  formerly  did  ;  its  dividing  seas  and 
mountains  have  none  of  their  old  effect ;  its  terrifying  pesti- 
lences have  been  half  subdued,  by  discovery  of  the  germs 
from  which  they  spring  ;  its  very  storms,  by  being  sentinelled, 
have  lost  half  their  power  to  surprise  us  in  our  travels  or  our 
work.  Netting  the  earth  with  steam  and  electric  railways, 
seaming  it  with  canals,  wire-stringing  it  with  telegraphic  and 
telephonic  lines  ;  ferrying  its  oceans  with  swift,  steam-driven 
ships  ;  ploughing,  planting,  harvesting,  spinning,  weaving,  knit- 
ting, sewing,  writing,  printing,  doing  everything,  with  cunning 
machines  and  with  tireless  forces  borrowed  from  coal  mines 
and  from  waterfalls,  men  are  making  a  new  world  for  them- 
selves out  of  that  in  which  they  lived  at  the  dawning  of  the 
era  of  mechanism  and  steam. 

These,  however,  are  but  outward  features  of  the  change 
that  is  being  wrought  in  the  world.  Socially,  politically, 
morally,  it  has  been  undergoing,  in  this  epoch,  a  deeper 
change.  The  growth  of  fellow-feeling  that  began  in  the  last 
century  has  been  an  increasing  growth.  It  has  not  ended 
war,  nor  the  passions  that  cause  war,  but  it  is  rousing  an 


562  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

opposition  which  gathers  strength  every  year,  and  it  is  forcing 
nations  to  settle  their  disputes  by  arbitration,  more  and  more. 
It  has  made  democratic  institutions  of  government  so  common 
that  the  few  arbitrary  governments  now  remaining  in  civilized 
countries  seem  disgraceful  to  the  people  who  endure  them  so 
long.  It  has  broken  many  of  the  old  yokes  of  conquest,  and 
revived  the  independence  of  many  long-subjugated  states. 
It  has  swept  away  unnatural  boundary  lines,  Avhich  separated 
peoples  of  kindred  language  and  race.  It  is  pressing  long- 
neglected  questions  of  right  and  justice  on  the  attention  of 
all  classes  of  men,  everywhere,  and  requiring  that  answers 
shall  be  found. 

And,  still,  even  these  are  but  minor  effects  of  the  prodigious 
change  that  the  nineteenth  century  has  brought  into  the 
experience  of  mankind.  Far  beyond  them  all  in  importance 
are  the  new  conceptions  of  the  universe,  the  new  suggestions 
and  inspirations  to  all  human  thought,  that  science  has  been 
giving  in  these  later  years.  If  we  live  in  a  world  that  is 
different  from  that  which  our  ancestors  knew,  it  is  still  more 
the  fact  that  we  think  of  a  different  universe,  and  feel  differ- 
ently in  our  relations  to  it. 

In  all  views,  therefore,  it  seems  to  be  plain  that  an  extraor- 
dinary period  in  human  history  is  being  passed  through  at 
the  present  time,  under  conditions  of  life,  of  action,  and  of 
thought  so  utterly  changed  that  the  outcome  is  not  to  be  cal- 
culated from  any  experience  in  the  past. 

The  Napoleonic  Wars.  The  first  fifteen  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  were  mostly  filled  wdth  wars  fought  on  all 
sides  against  Napoleon,  who  aspired  to  make  himself  master 
of  the  European  world.  In  1804,  he  dropped  the  pretence  of 
republicanism,  and  crowned  himself,  in  France  as  emperor,  in 
Italy  as  king.  Then  he  planned  a  great  invasion  of  England, 
and  when  his  plan  was  frustrated,  by  the  naval  victory  of  Lord 
Nelson  at  Trafalgar  (see  section  370),  he  turned  the  army 
he  had  prepared  for  it  against  Austria  and  Russia,  which 
were  allied  with  England,  and  vanquished  their  united  forces 


THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  56 


o 


at  Austcrlitz.  From  that  hour  his  ambition  overleaped  every 
bound.  He  placed  one  of  his  brothers  on  the  throne  of 
Naples  and  another  on  the  throne  of  Holland ;  his  sisters 
became  princesses,  his  generals  became  dukes.  Southern 
Germany  underwent  a  reconstruction  at  his  hands.  The 
ancient  Holy  Roman  Empire  (see  pages  53  and  131)  ceased, 
even  as  a  fiction,  to  exist,  and  the  reigning  emperor,  Francis 
n.,  resigned  the  venerable  title  it  gave  and  took  that  of 
Emperor  of  Austria,  instead. 

The  Overthrow  and  the  Recojistriiction  of  Prussia.  Germany 
in  general  submitted  to  Napoleon's  commands  ;  but  Prussia 
flamed  out  in  a  rash  declaration  of  war  (October,  1806),  and 
was  crushed  under  the  feet  of  a  conqueror  who  had  no  spark 
of  generous  feeling  in  his  soul.  With  all  his  genius,  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  was  as  coarse  in  nature  as  a  boor,  and  seemed 
to  delight  in  insolent  uses  of  his  power.  He  indulged  it  in 
Prussia  and  in  Germany  at  large  with  fatal  consequences  to 
himself.  The  German  spirit  was  roused,  not  broken,  by  the 
humiliations  it  had  to  endure,  and  Prussia,  especially,  was 
wakened  to  a  new  life.  A  number  of  great  statesmen  began 
a  quiet  work  of  national  reconstruction  which  had  astonishing 
results.  Serfdom,  lingering  until  that  late  time,  was  swept 
away ;  the  school  system  which  has  educated  the  Prussians 
beyond  their  neighbors  was  founded  ;  the  military  system 
which  has  made  them  a  nation  of  soldiers  was  organized ;  in 
every  way  the  career  that  Prussia  has  realized  since  was  pre- 
pared for,  then  and  there. 

The  Fall  of  Napoleon.  Napoleon,  meantime,  was  being  led 
by  a  mad  ambition  into  undertakings  beyond  his  power.  He 
had  begun  a  futile  attempt  to  suppress  all  trade  and  com- 
munication between  England  and  the  continent  (see  section 
372)  ;  and  he  had  made  the  more  ruinous  mistake  of  endeav- 
oring to  place  his  brother  Joseph  on  the  throne  of  Spain. 
The  Spaniards  resisted ;  England  sent  armies,  under  the 
Duke  of  Wellington,  to  their  help,  and  the  seven  years  of 
obstinate  war  that  followed,  in  the  Spanish  peninsula  (1808- 


564  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

18 14),  were  fatally  weakening  to  France.  For  a  few  years 
Napoleon  seemed  to  be  irresistible,  but  the  end  of  his  power 
to  hector  Europe  was  drawing  near.  Having  quarrelled  with 
the  Tsar,  who  became  his  ally  in  1807,  he  led  a  great  army 
to  Moscow,  in  18 12,  and  there  his  downfall  began.  The 
Muscovites  burned  their  city,  and  he  was  driven  to  a  winter 
retreat,  in  which  all  but  a  wretched  remnant  of  his  host  was 
slaughtered  or  perished  of  starvation  and  cold.  Then  Ger- 
tnany  rose  against  him,  joined  by  Russia  and  Austria,  while 
Wellington  expelled  his  forces  from  Spain  and  crossed  the 
Pyrenees  into  France.  Assailed  on  all  sides  and  driven  to 
Paris,  he  gave  up  his  throne  (April,  18 14),  and  the  Bourbon 
monarchy  was  restored.  Napoleon  was  given  the  island  of 
Elba  as  a  small  principality,  and  retired  to  it  until  the  follow- 
ing spring,  when  he  reappeared  suddenly  in  France.  He  was 
welcomed  by  army  and  people,  and  the  Bourbon  court  fled. 
For  a  few  weeks  he  was  emperor  again ;  but  the  powers 
which  had  dethroned  him  were  not  to  be  so  defied.  Their 
decree  against  him  was  made  final  by  his  defeat  at  Waterloo, 
and  he  was  sent  to  captivity  on  the  island  of  St.  Helena  for 
life. 

The  Holy  Alliance.  The  sovereigns  whose  armies  had 
broken  Napoleon  down  assumed  authority  to  rearrange  every- 
thing he  had  disturbed.  In  a  general  congress  at  Vienna, 
they  and  their  representatives  undertook  a  new  settlement  of 
things,  entirely  in  the  interest  of  ruling  families,  and  without 
the  least  regard  for  the  welfare  and  rights  of  the  people  at 
large.  The  Bourbons  were  restored  in  Spain,  Naples,  and 
Sicily,  as  well  as  in  France.  The  King  of  Sardinia  recovered 
his  dominions,  and  all  the  little  Austrian  despots  of  Italy 
were  brought  back.  In  Germany,  as  nearly  as  possible,  the 
old  bad  state  of  things  was  patched  up  anew.  A  very  neat 
map  of  reconstructed  Europe  was  made,  in  fact,  at  Vienna, 
and  the  Tsar  of  Russia,  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  and  the  King 
of  Prussia  entered  into  a  "  Holy  Alliance  "  for  the  keeping  of 
the  map  as  they  had  made  it. 


THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  565 

The  Revo  lilt  io7is  0/1820-182,0.  But  a  spirit  stronger  than  the 
Holy  Alliance  had  got  abroad  in  the  world,  and  it  soon  began 
to  shake  the  Vienna  arrangement  of  things.  Spain  set  the 
revolutionary  example,  in  1820,  followed  by  Italy  in  the  same 
year,  and,  though  both  movements  were  put  down  by  the 
Alliance,  they  gave  independence  to  the  Spanish  colonies  in 
America,  which  revolted,  with  encouragement  from  England 
and  the  United  States.  In  182 1,  the  Greeks  rose  against 
their  Turkish  oppressors,  and  won  freedom  after  struggling 
for  eight  years.  In  1830,  there  Avere  many  outbreaks.  France 
expelled  the  reigning  king,  Charles  X.,  and  gave  his  crown  to 
another  Bourbon,  of  the  Orle'ans  branch,  who  promised  a 
more  constitutional  rule.  Belgium  broke  away  from  Holland, 
to  which  it  had  been  tied  ;  constitutions  were  extorted  from 
several  German  princes  ;  Russian  Poland  made  a  brave  but 
vain  attempt  to  burst  its  bonds ;  unsuccessful  risings  occurred 
again  in  some  of  the  Italian  states ;  and  then  the  English 
people,  happiest  of  all  in  political  circumstances,  won  their 
first  great  parliamentary  reform  (see  section  388). 

The  Revolutions  of  184.8.  From  that  time  until  1848  there 
was  general  quiet  on  the  surface  in  Europe,  with  an  increasing 
heat  of  rebellious  feeling  underneath.  In  1848,  the  storm  of 
revolution  broke  forth,  first  in  Italy,  then  sweeping  into 
France,  and  through  Germany  to  Austria  and  Hungary,  even 
shaking  the  Swiss  republic,  where  it  produced  a  new  consti- 
tution, after  civil  war.  In  France,  the  Bourbon  monarchy 
was  overthrown  finally,  and  a  republican  government  was 
reestablished,  but  not  to  endure.  In  Italy,  the  revolt,  most 
promising  at  first,  failed  grievously  in  the  end.  In  Hungary, 
it  was  crushed  by  Russian  and  Austrian  armies  combined. 
In  Germany,  it  resulted  in  a  Prussian  constitution,  and  in  a 
general  loosening  of  the  old  hard  lines  of  arbitrary  govern- 
ment ;  but  the  greater  fruits  it  might  have  had  were  lost  for 
want  of  practical  statesmen,  instead  of  bookish  men,  in  the 
lead. 

The  Second  Empire  in  F?-ance.     Louis  Napoleon,  a  nephew 


566  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

of  the  first  Napoleon,  was  elected  president  of  the  new  re- 
public of  France.  In  imitation  of  his  uncle,  he  brought  about 
its  overthrow  (185 1),  and  set  up  a  Second  Empire,  which  was 
a  rotten  sham.  For  eighteen  years  he  contrived  to  make 
himself  a  conspicuous  figure  in  affairs.  In  1854,  he  drew 
England  with  him  into  a  needless  and  badly  managed  war 
with  Russia  (the  Crimean  War,  so  called),  for  the  defence  of 
the  Turks. 

The  Unification  of  Italy.  In  1859,  Louis  Napoleon  found 
another  and  better  opportunity  for  war.  He  led  an  army 
to  the  assistance  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  King  of  Sardinia,  who 
had  undertaken  to  drive  the  Austrians  from  those  states 
in  northern  Italy  which  they  oppressed.  In  great  battles  at 
Magenta  and  Solferino,  Austria  was  defeated,  and  Napoleon 
then  closed  the  war  abruptly,  by  a  treaty  which  gave  Lom- 
bardy  to  Sardinia,  but  left  Venetia  and  other  Italian  states 
still  under  the  Austrian  yoke.  Patriotic  Italians  would  not 
accept  that  meagre  result.  Tuscany,  Parma,  Modena,  and 
Romagna  demanded  annexation  to  Sardinia,  and  obtained  it 
in  i860.  Garibaldi,  a  great  champion  of  liberty,  raised  an 
army  of  volunteers  and  drove  the  Bourbon  king  and  court 
from  Sicily  and  Naples  in  that  same  year.  Both  were  annexed 
to  the  kingdom  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  which  then  became  the 
kingdom  of  Italy,  with  a  national  parliament  and  a  liberal 
constitution.  Six  years  later,  Venetia  was  added,  and  in  1870 
the  papal  states  were  taken,  which  made  the  Italian  kingdom 
complete,  with  its  seat  of  government  at  Rome. 

Evetits  in  America.  Meantime  the  great  conflict  of  civil 
war  had  occurred  in  the  United  States  (1861-65),  and  Louis 
Napoleon,  always  craving  opportunities  to  play  some  showy 
part  in  the  world,  desired  to  interfere  in  it ;  but  he  failed  to 
persuade  England  to  join  him,  and  did  not  venture  to  act 
alone.  In  Mexico,  however,  he  saw  what  seemed  to  be  a  safe 
opening  for  his  intrusive  hand,  while  the  United  States  were 
busied  with  troubles  of  their  own.  He  undertook,  accord- 
ingly, to  set  up  an  empire  in  that  country,  with  an  Austrian 


THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  567 

archduke  on  the  throne.  The  American  government  pro- 
tested vainly,  until  the  civil  war  ended ;  but  when  it  began 
then,  in  1867,  to  move  troops  towards  the  Mexican  border, 
the  French  forces  in  that  country  were  speedily  called  home ; 
after  which  the  Mexican  empire  lasted  two  months  and  a 
week.  The  unfortunate  Austrian  prince,  Maximilian,  over- 
come by  the  Mexicans,  was  put  to  death  ;  a  republican  govern- 
ment was  restored,  and  Mexico,  after  a  few  disturbed  years, 
settled  down  to  a  peaceful  and  prosperous  career. 

The  Unificatio?i  of  Gcrmafiy.  The  liberation  and  unification 
of  Italy  was  the  first  of  several  great  movements  of  political 
union  which  have  been  the  most  remarkable  facts  of  the  last 
forty  years.  The  next  to  occur  was  in  Germany,  where  it  was 
begun,  in  1866,  by  a  sharply  fought  "seven  weeks'  war" 
between  Prussia  and  Austria,  which  established  the  leadership 
of  the  former  in  German  affairs.  The  fruits  of  the  Prussian 
victory  were  used  with  surpassing  force  and  skill,  by  a  re- 
markable statesman,  Otto  von  Bismarck,  acting  under  an  able 
king,  William  I.  The  Prussian  kingdom  was  enlarged,  absorb- 
ing Hanover  and  several  duchies,  and  a  North  German  Con- 
federation of  neighboring  states  was  formed,  with  the  King  of 
Prussia  at  its  head. 

The  Franco-Prussian  War.  The  sudden  rise  of  Prussia  to 
a  rank  among  the  great  powers  woke  the  jealousy  of  the 
French  emperor,  and  he  seemed  to  feel  called  upon  to  check 
her  growing  influence  over  the  other  German  states.  On  the 
other  hand,  Bismarck,  who  knew,  as  Louis  Napoleon  did  not, 
the  hollowness  of  the  French  empire,  was  more  than  willing 
to  give  him  the  opportunity  for  war  that  he  sought.  Naturally, 
under  those  circumstances,  hostilities  broke  out,  in  1870, 
between  Prussia  and  France,  and  France  was  beaten  down 
more  completely  than  Austria  had  been.  In  six  weeks  from 
the  day  that  he  sent  his  declaration  of  war,  Louis  Napoleon 
was  a  captive  and  the  imperial  government  had  ceased  to 
exist.  In  less  than  seven  months  from  that  fatal  day,  the 
Prussians  were  in  Paris,  dictating  hard  terms  of  peace.    They 


568  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

took  back  Alsace,  which  France  had  wrested  from  Germany 
by  war  two  centuries  before,  and  they  wrung  from  the  French 
nation  a  payment  of  no  less  than  five  thousand  millions  of 
francs  ($1,000,000,000),  as  indemnity  for  the  war. 

llie  Third  Republic  in  France.  On  the  ruins  of  the  fallen 
French  empire,  a  republic  was  once  more  raised  —  the  Third 
Republic  in  France.  At  the  outset  it  had  a  fearful  struggle 
for  life  with  the  mob  of  Paris,  led  by  fanatical  and  violent 
men.  At  the  cost  of  much  bloodshed,  after  a  siege  of  nearly 
two  months,  the  rebellion  of  the  Communists,  as  they  were 
called,  was  overcome,  and  a  republican  government  was 
established,  which  has  endured  to  the  present  time. 

Creation  of  the  German  E77ipire.  In  Germany,  the  result 
of  the  Franco-Prussian  war  was  the  creation  of  a  new  Ger- 
manic empire,  in  which  the  nationalization  of  the  German 
people  was  made  complete.  It  is  a  federal  empire,  in  which 
three  kingdoms  (Prussia,  Bavaria,  and  Wurtemburg)  and 
numerous  duchies  are  united,  under  a  written  constitution, 
and  the  King  of  Prussia,  with  the  added  title  of  "  German 
Emperor,"  is  president  of  the  whole. 

The  Austro-Hungarian  E77ipi7'e.  The  Austrian  empire  had 
already  been  made  a  federal  empire,  organized  in  like  manner, 
as  one  of  the  consequences  of  the  defeat  sustained  in  1866, 
Hungary  being  placed  on  an  equal  footing  with  Austria,  each 
having  its  own  constitution,  under  a  federal  constitution 
which  covers  both. 

Later  European  Eve7its.  Since  the  Franco-Prussian  war  of 
1870,  the  peace  of  Europe  has  been  broken,  by  hostilities 
within  its  own  border,  but  once.  In  1875,  the  Christian  pro- 
vinces of  Turkey  began  a  fresh  revolt  against  the  dreadful 
misrule  under  which  they  were  kept.  First,  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina,  and  then  Bulgaria,  rose  in  arms,  and  their 
rebellion  was  atrociously  put  down  by  the  Turks.  Servia  and 
Montenegro  declared  war  in  their  behalf  and  were  overcome. 
Then  Russia,  in  1877,  espoused  their  cause,  and  a  fierce  war 
occurred,  which  might  have   ended   the  Turkish    empire   in 


THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY.  569 

Europe  if  the  jealousy  of  other  powers  had  not  interfered. 
As  it  was,  the  Bulgarians,  Bosnians,  and  Herzegovinians  were 
all  freed  from  Turkish  rule,  the  latter  two  peoples  being 
joined  to  Austria,  the  former  established  in  a  separate  state. 

In  the  Asiatic  World.  The  next  war  of  considerable  mag- 
nitude occurred  (1894-95)  in  the  farther  east,  between  China 
and  Japan.  The  former  proved  helplessly  weak,  the  latter 
surprisingly  strong  and  highly  advanced  in  the  modern  arts 
of  war.  The  opening  of  Japan  to  western  teaching,  and  the 
astonishing  progress  of  its  people  in  a  wholly  new  career,  are 
to  be  counted,  in  fact,  among  the  most  notable  events  in 
recent  times.  The  contrasting  decay  of  the  huge  Chinese 
empire,  and  the  rapid  advance  of  Russian  development  in 
Central  and  Siberian  Asia,  are  giving  rise  to  startling  ques- 
tions, that  will  have  their  answer  in  years  to  come. 

The  Spanish-American  War.  If  the  politics  of  the  eastern 
world  become  troubled,  our  own  country  is  now  certain  to  be 
mixed  in  their  complications,  since  the  results  of  its  success- 
ful war  with  Spain  (1898)  have  placed  it  in  possession  of  one 
of  the  great  archipelagoes  of  the  east.  A  new  and  strange  leaf 
in  American  history  has  been  turned  by  that  war,  opening 
surely  to  grave  consequences,  which  no  man  can  foresee. 

In  Africa.  Until  within  a  score  of  years,  the  vast  continent 
of  Africa  had  been  mostly  unknown  or  forgotten  in  history 
since  the  Ptolemies  reigned  on  the  Nile.  Now,  the  rivalries 
of  Europe  have  invaded  it,  and  Africa  has  suddenly  become 
the  conspicuous  arena  of  their  ambitious  strife  for  empire  and 
trade.  Very  nearly  the  entire  continent  is  occupied  or  con- 
trolled by  England,  France,  Germany,  Belgium,  and  Portugal, 
the  claims  and  possessions  of  England  forming  an  almost 
unbroken  line  of  territory  from  Egypt  to  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope.  It  is  natural  and  significant  that  the  latest  war  fought 
on  a  great  scale  in  the  nineteenth  century  (the  British-Boer 
war  of  1899-1900)  should  have  its  theatre  in  Africa,  and  that 
its  true  cause  should  be  found  in  the  new  value  attached  to 
possessions  in  that  part  of  the  world. 


570  GENERAL   HISTORY. 

The  Peace  Congress.  While  Europe  has  been  kept  at  peace 
within  itself  for  more  than  a  score  of  years,  its  leading  powers 
have  been  watching  each  other  with  jealousy  and  dread,  and 
their  armies  and  navies  have  been  growing  frightfully  in  mag- 
nitude and  cost.  The  burden  of  their  maintenance  presses 
so  hard  that,  in  August,  1898,  the  Tsar  of  Russia  asked  the 
nations  of  the  world  to  consult  together  and  find  a  common 
means  of  avoiding  the  continual  preparation  for  war.  The 
congress  for  that  purpose  which  he  invited  has  been  held 
(1899),  and,  though  it  did  not  accomplish  the  grand  aim  of 
the  Tsar,  it  set  up  a  goal  towards  which  civilized  men  are 
moving,  and  it  has  quickened  the  steps  of  their  march. 


CHAPTER   XXV» 

CONFLICT    WITH    NAPOLEON. 

George  III.     1800-1820. 

368.  Prance  fallen  under  Napoleon.  When  Pitt  re- 
signed office,  a  new  and  greater  trial  of  the  strength 
of  England  was  being  prepared  in  P'rance.  Bonaparte, 
returning  from  Egypt  in  the  fall  of  1799,  had  been  able 
to  overthrow  the  feeble  government  of  the  Directory 
(see  section  366),  and  to  make  himself,  under  the  title  of 
First  Consul,  the  absolute  ruler  of  the  state.  He  found 
the  country  assailed  by  a  new  coalition,  of  Russia  and 
Austria  with  Great  Britain,  and  its  military  prestige 
very  seriously  impaired.  By  flattering  Paul,  the  half- 
mad  Russian  Tsar,  and  by  a  brilliant  campaign  against 
the  Austrians  in  Italy,  he  broke  up  the  coalition,  made 
peace  with  Austria,  at  Luneville,  and  England  was  left  to 
oppose  him  alone.  No  other  obstacles  in  his  path,  then 
or  afterwards,  were  dreaded  so  much  by  the  rising  despot 
of  Europe  as  the  money,  the  navy,  and  the  stubborn  pub- 
lic spirit  of  the  British  people ;  and  the  whole  force  of 
his  genius  and  will  was  bent  upon  the  breaking  of  their 
power. 

369.  The  Peace  of  Amiens  and  the  Renewal  of  War. 
But  England,  with  the  long  arm  of  her  navy,  was  striking 
blows  which  warned  her  enemy  to  gird  himself  before 
he  engaged  with  her  in  mortal  strife.  In  Sep-  capture  of 
tember  of  1800,  she  drove  the  French  from  the  ^^^^*- 
great  citadel  of  Malta  in  the  Mediterranean.     In  the  next 


572  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1801-1803 

March,  she  expelled  them  from  Egypt.  In  April,  her  irre- 
sistible Nelson  seized  the  fleet  of  the  Danes,  in  the  harbor 
of  their  own  capital,  and  broke  up  a  new  league  that  had 
been  formed  by  the  northern  powers,  against  British  at- 
tempts to  stop  the  carrying  of  French  goods  in  neutral 
ships.  Napoleon  being  willing  then  to  gain  an  interval 
of  peace,  in  which  to  make  further  preparations  for  war, 
and  the  desire  for  peace  in  England  having  become  very 
strong,  a  treaty  was  signed  at  Amiens,  in  March,  1802, 
which  gave  a  breathing  spell  to  both.  England  surren- 
dered all  her  conquests  beyond  the  sea  except  Trinidad 
and  Ceylon,  and  George  III.  solemnly  gave  up  the  ridicu- 
lous title  of  ''King  of  France,"  which  English  kings  had 
retained  since  the  days  of  Edward  III.  Cape  Colony  was 
restored  to  Holland,  but  retaken  four  years  later,  after 
war  began  anew,  and  has  been  an  English  possession 
ever  since. 

It  was  only  a  brief  breathing  time  of  peace  that  the 
two  countries  enjoyed.  Quarrels  over  Malta,  and  over 
offensive  articles  in  English  newspapers,  brought  war 
again,  in  May,  1 803.  Napoleon  opened  it  dishonorably,  by 
seizing  some  10,000  British  travellers,  men  and  women. 
Threat-  ^ho  had  visitcd  France  during  the  peace,  keep- 
skufo?^^'  ^*^&  them  prisoners  for  years.  At  the  same 
England,  time,  he  began  immense  preparations  for  invad- 
ing England,  with  a  great  army,  to  be  assembled  at 
Boulogne,  and  to  be  protected  in  crossing  the  Channel 
by  fleets  of  France  and  Spain.  The  vast  work  of  pre- 
paration went  slowly  on  through  many  months  ;  while 
the  English  increased  their  navy  and  put  300,000  volun- 
teers under  arms. 

370.  Trafalgar  and  Austerlitz.  —  The  Death  of  Pitt. 
The  ministry  which  had  succeeded  that  of  Pitt  failed 
to  win  public  confidence,  and  its  leader,  Mr.  Addington 


1804-1805]         CONFLICT    WITH    NAPOLEON. 


573 


(afterwards  Viscount  Sidmouth),  was  forced  to  give  way 
to  the  trusted  Pitt,  who  returned  to  the  direction  of 
affairs  (May,  1804).  Before  Napoleon  (now  bearing  the 
title  of  Emperor)  was  ready  to  strike  his  blow  from 
Boulogne,  Pitt  had  organized  a  new  coalition  against 
him,  in  which 
Russia,  Austria, 
and  Sweden  were 
joined. 

But  the  great 
blow  was  never 
struck  ;  the  en- 
ergy of  Nelson  had 
paralyzed  the  arm 
which  threatened 
it,  by  a  counter 
blow.  In  Napo- 
leon's plan,  the 
French  and  Span- 
ish fleets  were  to 
draw  Nelson  away 
to  the  West  In- 
dies, by  threaten- 
ing movements  in  that  direction,  then  double  suddenly 
back  to  the  English  Channel  and  guard  the  crossing  of 
French  troops.  The  device  was  tried,  in  the  spring  of 
1805,  with  enough  success  to  carry  the  watchful  Nelson 
away  upon  a  futile  chase  ;  but  in  every  other 

•         1  •         r     -1       1  -1-1  r        ^  ^      NapoleOll 

particular  it  railed.      I  he^  master  of  the  grand  at 
army  at  Boulogne  waited  and  watched  in  vain 
for  the  return  of  his  fleets.     They  were  not  in  a  condi- 
tion to  be  kept  together,  or  to  make  speed.     Nelson  was 
back,  and  the  defensive  navy  of  England  was  concen- 
trated again,  before  that  of  France  could  be  got  in  readi- 


LORD    NELSON. 


574 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT. 


[1805 


ness  to  make  ijts  attempt.  When  it  did  sail  for  the 
Channel,  it  was  attacked  and  almost  destroyed,  in  the 
famous  naval  fight  off  Cape  Trafalgar  (October  21,  1805), 
where  Nelson  died  his  heroic  death.  No  army  or  fleet 
has  been  assembled  since  that  decisive  day  to  invade  the 
well-o^uarded  British  Isle. 

Even  before  the  fleets  came  together  in  battle,  Napo- 
leon had  seen  the  failure  of  his  plans,  and,  by  making 
a  sudden  change  in  them,  with  that  marvellous  energy 
in  which  he  surpassed  all  other  men,  he  snatched  a 
victory  on  the  Danube  out  of  the  defeat  that  he  suf- 
fered on  the  English  strait.  Moving  his  army  with 
incredible  swiftness  from  the  western  coast  of  France 
to   the   heart    of  the  Austrian    empire,   he-  surrounded 

40,000  Austrian 
troops  and  took 
them  prisoners, 
at  Ulm,  on  the 
19th  of  October, 
entered  Vienna 
on  the  14th  of 
November,  and 
defeated  the  com- 
bined armies  of 
Austria  and  Rus- 
sia, on  the  2d  of 
December,  in  the 
great  battle  of 
Austerlitz.  The 
Third  Coalition 
against  him  was 
broken  up. 

Pitt,  who  was  ill  in  health  and  worn  down  with  his 
labors  and  cares,  never  rallied  from  the  shock  that  was 


CHARLES   JAMES    FOX. 


i8o6-i8o7]  CONFLICT    WITH    NAPOLEON.  575 

given  him  by  the  news  of  Austerhtz.     He  died  on  the 
23d  of  January,  1806. 

371.  The  Ministry  of  all  the  Talents  and  its  Tory 
Successor.  Circumstances,  on  the  death  of  Pitt,  com- 
pelled the  king  to  accept  a  ministry  made  up  from  several 
parties  or  factions,  and  styled  the  "  Ministry  of  all  the 
Talents,"  with  Fox  and  Lord  Grenville  at  its  head.  Fox, 
whom  the  king  hated  and  had  kept  from  office  for  years, 
was  a  statesman  of  brilliant  talents,  large  and  warm  sym- 
pathies, and  many  traits  that  have  endeared  his  memory, 
though  his  private  life  was  ill-spent.  The  opportunity 
that  now  came  to  him  for  ministerial  work  was  Death  of 
very  brief,  for  he  died  in  the  same  year,  after  ■^°^" 
making  vain  attempts  to  arrange  peace  with  Napoleon,  — 
attempts  which  only  revealed  to  him  the  perfidy  of  that 
terrible  man  of  the  sword.  Fox  lived  long  enough  to  feel 
assured  that  a  bill  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave  trade, 
which  he  had  pressed,  would  pass  Parliament,  as  it  did 
early  in  1807. 

The  question  of  relief  to  the  Catholics,  from  some 
at  least  of  the  many  disabilities  under  which  they  were 
kept,  pressed  more  and  more  sternly  on  the  conscience 
of  honorable  men ;  but  the  king  shut  his  ears  to  it,  and 
demanded  of  the  ministry,  at  last,  a  written  pledge  that 
the  subject  should  never  be  touched.  They  resigned  in 
consequence,  and  a  strongly  Tory  ministry  was  change  of 
formed,  nominally  under  the  Duke  of  Portland,  "^i^^stry. 
but  with  abler  men  included,  —  Canning,  Castlereagh, 
Eldon,  Perceval,  in  the  number, — all  of  whom  became 
notable  afterwards  in  public  affairs, 

372.  British  Orders  in  Council  and  the  Continental 
System  of  Napoleon.     By  this  time  Napoleon 

had  beaten  Prussia  to  the  earth  (see  page  563), 

and  had  defeated  and  humbled  the   Russian   emperor, 


S7^  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.  [1806 

when  he  came  to  her  defence.  Almost  the  whole  of 
Europe  was  subject  to  his  commands,  and  he  felt  power- 
ful enough  to  attack  England,  which  his  armies  could  not 
reach,  in  a  mode  that  might  starve  her  industries,  ruin 
her  trade,  and  destroy  her  power  by  a  general  blight. 

In  striving  to  stop  the  use  of  neutral  ships  for  French 
commerce,  the  English  had  given  great  offence,  as  men- 
tioned heretofore,  to  some  of  the  European  powers,  and 
even  more  to  the  Americans,  who  were  getting  a  rich 
profit  from  the  trade  which  the  Napoleonic  wars  threw 
into  their  hands.  By  what  are  known  as  orders  in  coun- 
cil, the  British  government  had  declared  the  whole  coast 
of  western  Europe,  from  Brest  to  the  Elbe,  to 
of  Euro-  be  in  a  state  of  blockade,  even  where  no  Brit- 
ish war  vessels  were  present  to  watch,  and  it 
claimed  the  right  to  seize,  wherever  found,  any  neutral 
ship  that  had  sailed  from  or  that  sought  to  enter  a  port 
on  that  coast.  It  further  claimed  the  right  to  search 
vessels  of  all  nations,  to  learn  whence  they  came,  whither 
they  were  bound,  and  what  cargoes  they  bore.  The 
English  were  thus  making  a  very  arrogant  use  of  their 
command  of  the  sea. 

Napoleon  now  believed  that  he  was  able,  with  his 
power  on  land,  to  turn  this  mode  of  warfare  against  Eng- 
land and  destroy  her  wl^ole  trade  with  the  European 
world.  Accordingly,  in  November,  1806,  he  issued,  from 
Berlin,  a  decree  which  declared  the  British  islands  to  be 
in  a  state  of  blockade,  prohibited  all  commerce  with 
them,  and  commanded  that  all  merchandise  and 

The  Berlin  t^   •      •  11  i       • 

and  Milan  manufactures  of  Great  Britain  and  her  colonies, 
and  all  British  subjects,  should  be  seized  wher- 
ever found.  The  English  government  retaliated  by  new 
orders  in  council,  which  extended  the  earlier  ones  to 
every  port  from  which  British  ships  were  shut  out.  •    Na- 


i8o7] 


CONFLICT  WITH    NAPOLEON. 


577 


poleon  answered  by  a  new  decree  from  Milan,  increasing 
the  rigor  of  that  from  BerHn  ;  and  thus  the  battle  of 
belligerent  commercial  decrees,  all  striking  at  the  trade 
of  peaceful  people,  and  at  that  of  the  Americans  most  of 
all,  went  on  for  several  years. 

Napoleon's  "  continental  system  "  of  commercial  war- 
fare with  England,  as  it  was  called,  failed  entirely  to 
accomplish  what  he  hoped.     It  injured,  but   it  did  not 


STAGE    COACH    IN    1S04. 


ruin,  English  manufactures  and  trade,  for  the  reason 
that  even  the  power  of  Napoleon  could  not  suppress,  on 
any  part  of  the  continent,  the  smuggled  commerce  with 
Great  Britain  that  went  on.  He  had  absolutely  no  power 
at  sea.  He  had  expected,  in  1807,  to  seize  and  make 
use  of  the  Danish  fleet ;  but  the  English  government 
forestalled  his  design  by  committing  the  same  outrage 
themselves.  Everywhere  in  Europe  there  was  suffer- 
ing from  needs  which  that  continent  could  not  supply  to 


5/8  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1807-1808 

itself,  and  nothing  in  his  hard  and  insolent  use  of  power 
put  more  bitterness  into  the  hatred  of  his  yoke  than  the 
Berlin  and  Milan  decrees. 

373.  Beginning  of  Quarrel  with  the  United  States. 
Equally  outraged  by  the  British  orders  in  council  and  by 
the  decrees  of  Napoleon,  and  not  feeling  strong  enough 
for  a  war  with  either  or  both,  the  government  of  the 
United  States  made  a  singular  attempt  to  retaliate,  in 
1807,  by  an  Embargo  Act,  which  forbade  the  departure 
of  vessels  from  any  American  to  any  foreign  port.  This 
totally  deprived  all  the  world  of  American  products,  and 
The  Em-  the  deprivation  was  sorely  felt ;  but  it  caused 
bargo  Act.  ^^  suffering  abroad,  even  in  England,  that  was 
equal  to  the  ruin  it  wrought  at  home.  In  the  next  year 
an  act  of  non-intercourse  with  France  and  England  was 
adopted,  instead  of  the  general  embargo  ;  and,  with  in- 
creasing distress  from  loss  of  trade,  American  hostility 
of  feeling,  especially  toward  England,  grew  more  intense. 

The  offence  of  England  was  far  more  than  in  the  mat- 
ter of  interference  with  neutral  trade.  The  "  right  of 
search"  which  she  claimed  at  sea  was  not  only  for  goods 
that  she  might  seize,  but  also  for  sailors  whom  she  might 
The  "right  claim  as  English  subjects,  and  impress  for  ser- 
of  search."  ^-^^  ^^  ^iQr  own  ships.     When  even  American 

war  vessels  were  insolently  searched  for  that  purpose 
by  British  ships  of  greater  strength,  the  feeling  excited 
was  too  intense  to  be  restrained  very  long  from  war. 

374.  The  War  in  Spain.  Intoxicated  with  power. 
Napoleon  had  now  entered  the  frenzied  courses  which 
led  him  to  his  fall.  He  was  maddening  Germany  by  his 
grinding  oppressions,  and  was  rousing  a  fierce  national 
pride  and  a  desperate  resistance  in  Spain.  England  be- 
came enlisted  in  the  defence,  first  of  Portugal  and  then 
of   Spain,  in   1808,  and  for  the  next  six  years  her  main 


i8oS-i8i2]  CONFLICT    WITH    NAPOLEON. 


579 


struggle  with  the 
great  enemy  was 
in  the  field  of  that 
"  Pen  insular  War 
where  Sir  John 
Moore,  whose 

death*  is  immor- 
talized in  English 
verse,  fell  fight- 
ing victoriously  at 
Corunna,  though 
fighting  in  retreat, 
and  where  Sir 
Arthur  Wellesley, 
fresh  from  con- 
quests in  India, 
gained  a  series  of 
great  victories  — 
Talavera,  Busaco, 
Salamanca,      Vit- 

toria,  Toulouse,  and  others  —  which  won  his  peerage,  as 
Duke  of  Wellington,  and  gave  him  his  fame. 

375.   Confirmed  Insanity  of  George  III.  —  Regency 
of  the  Prince  of  Wales.     In  the  midst  of  these  events 
(November,   1810),  the  king  became   insane   again,  and 
remained  so   until  the   end  of  his  life.     The  Prince  of 
Wales  was  made  regent  by  a  bill  passed  in  the  following 
February,  and  reigned  as  such  for  ten  years  before  he 
became  king.     Canning,  Castlereagh,  and  Portland  had 
resigned  from  the   cabinet,  in   consequence  of  quarrels, 
some    months    before,    and    Perceval    had    be- 
come  the  ministerial  chief.      He   remained    so  tionof 
until  his  death  by  murder,  at  the  hands  of  a 
madman,  in  18 12,  when  Lord  Liverpool  took  his  place. 


ARTHUR    WELLESLEY,    DUKE    OF    WELLINGTON. 


58o  ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.         [1S09-1815 

376.  The  Overthrow  of  Napoleon.  The  crumbling 
of  Napoleon's  power  began  with  the  stubborn  resistance 
he  encountered  in  Spain  ;  though  he  was  able  to  crush 
Austria  once  more  at  Aspern  and  Wagram  (1809),  and 
seemed  to  have  the  world  at  his  feet.  But  the  life-blood 
of  France  had  been  drained  by  his  merciless  wars  ;  Ger- 
many was  being  silently  prepared  to  rise  against  him 
with  a  new  spirit  and  a  new  strength  ;  and  when,  in  the 
last  months  of  1812,  he  fled  back  from  his  mad  invasion 
of  Russia,  strewing  the  northern  snows  with  the  dead  of 
a  mighty  host,  his  career  of  bloody  triumphs  was  at  an 
end.  Then  came  the  tale  of  defeats,  finished  by  the 
great  British  and  Prussian  victory  at  Waterloo. 

377.  War  with  the  United  States.  During  the  last 
three  years  of  her  conflict  with  Napoleon,  England  was 
also  at  war  with  the  United  States.  After  long  and  bit- 
ter controversy  over  the  orders  in  council  and  the  search- 
ing of  American  ships,  the  orders  were  withdrawn  by 
the  British  government,  but  too  late.  The  exasperated 
Americans  had  already  declared  war  (June  18,  18 12). 
In  the  fighting  that  ensued,  they  had  more  success  at 
sea  than  on  land.  Their  sailors  proved  to  be  better 
trained,  their  gunnery  more  accurate,  their  ships,  as  a 
rule,  better  built  and  better  handled,  and  they  won  a 
series  of  naval  victories,  in  battles,  for  the  most  part, 
between  single  ships,  that  astonished  the  English,  ac- 
customed so  long,  as  they  were,  to  unrivalled  prowess  at 
sea. 

But  in  the  campaigns  on  land  there  was  less  glory  for 
the  American  arms.  Canada  was  defended  against  them 
with  entire  success,  and  the  war  wrought  no  territorial 
The  treaty  change.  As  for  the  disputes  over  which  it 
of  Ghent,  ^ggan,  Concerning  neutral  trade  and  rights  of 
search,  they   were  not   mentioned   in   the   treaty  which 


1800-1815]  CONFLICT  WITH    NAPOLEON.  581 

ended  the  war,  signed  at  Ghent  on  the  24th  of  December, 
1 8 14.  But  practically  they  were  disposed  of,  since  Great 
Britain  ceased  exercising  the  questionable  rights  she  had 
claimed. 

378.  The  Breeding  of  Deraocratic  Discontent.  In 
the  period  between  the  ministry  of  Walpole  and  the  bat- 
tle of  Waterloo,  England  had  experienced  half  a  century 
of  war  and  barely  twenty-five  years  of  peace.  The  later 
years  of  the  period  had  been  filled  with  a  struggle  that 
was  almost  for  life.  It  had  not  devoured  the  population 
of  the  country  to  the  horrible  extent  of  the  suffering  in 
France,  but  had  consumed  its  wealth.  Public  debt  and 
taxation  had  been  carried  to  a  height  never  imagined 
as  possibilities  before.  The  strain  could  not  have  been 
borne  if  the  great  inventions  which  increased  production 
had  not  been  brought  to  the  help  of  English  industries 
at  this  time  (see  section  361).  But,  while  the  wealth 
that  supported  British  wars  came  largely  from  those  in- 
dustrial improvements,  they  were  likewise  the  cause  of 
much  disturbance  and  distress,  which  deepened  the  ordi- 
nary suffering  from  war ;  for  the  change  from  hand-labor 
to  machine-labor,  and  from  home-work  to  factory-work, 
left  great  numbers  struggling  to  live  by  the  old  methods, 
and  being  starved  in  the  hopeless  fight. 

So  far  as  British  landowners  and  farmers  were  con- 
cerned, they  should  naturally  and  rightly  have  been  los- 
ers by  the  peace.  During  the  period  of  commercial 
blockading,  they  had  had  the  feeding  of  the  country  in 
their  own  hands,  and  made  the  price  of  food  to  the  peo- 
ple of  the  towns  very  high.  This  had  been  the  chief 
distress  of  the  war,  and  it  ought  to  have  ended  with  the 
war ;  but  it  did  not.  The  landowning  interest,  being 
that  which  controlled  mainly  the  representation  in  Par- 
liament,  was  able  to  put  duties  on   food    from  abroad, 


582 


ARISTOCRATIC   GOVERNMENT.        [1800-1820 


L 


WILLIAM    WORDSWORTH. 


which  "protected"  British 
farming  against  competi- 
tion as  effectually  as  the 
blockades  of  war  time  had 
done.  It  had  imposed 
such  protective  duties,  in 
a  somewhat  moderate  way, 
by  what  were  known  as 
"corn  laws"  (wheat  and 
The  corn  all  Other  grain 
laws.  being     called 

"corn")  for  many  years; 
but  now  it  obtained  a  corn 
law  which  absolutely  prohibited  the  importation  of  wheat 
whenever  its  price  fell  below  80  shillings  (about  $20),  a 
quarter  (eight  bushels) ;  and  that  iniquitous  law  was  kept 
untouched  for  thirteen  years  by  the  parliamentary  power 
of  the  landlords,  who  thus  "protected"  their  high  rents. 
Such  oppressive  class  government,  in  a  time  of  gen- 
eral hardship,  stirred  up 
democratic  feeling  in 
England  very  fast,  and 
the  demand  for  a  better 
representation  of  the  peo- 
ple in  Parliament  took  on 
a  more  threatening  tone. 
It  gathered  force  from 
the  growth  of  manufac- 
turing towns,  and  was 
strengthened  and  embit- 
tered by  stupid  measures 
Demand  of  the  Tory  gov- 
for  reform,  ernmcut,  which 

tried    to     put 


agitation 


ROBERT    BURNS. 


,775-iS2o]         CONFLICT   WITH    NAPOLEON. 


583 


down.  There  were  consequently  some  years  of  no  little 
disorder,  partly  political  and  partly  due  to  riotous  out- 
breaks among  the  suffering  hand-weavers,  who  tried  to 
destroy  the  power-looms  and  factories,  to  which  they 
attributed  their  distress. 

This  state  of  things  continued  until  after  the  close  of 
the  reign  of  George  III.,  who  died  in  January,  Death  of 
1820.     The  prince  regent  then  became  king,  as  ^^^^'sq  m. 
George  IV. 

379.  Literature  of  the  Period.  All  feeling,  if  not 
all  thought,  would 
seem  to  have  been 
animated  by  the 
revolutionary  ex- 
citements of  the 
last  two  or  three  de- 
cades in  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  and 
one  of  its  effects 
was  to  give  litera- 
ture a  warmer  tone. 
The  distinction  of 
the  poetry  of  Burns, 
Wordsworth,  Cole- 
ridge, Scott,  is  in 
its  freedom  of  form 
and  in  the  frank- 
ness and  freshness 

of  its  spirit,  as  compared  with  that  of  Goldsmith,  Gray, 
and  Shenstone,  in  the  preceding  generation.  With  a 
deeper  tinge  of  human  passion  in  it,  the  same  gift  of 
warmth  was  passed  on  to  the  poetry  of  Byron,  Shelley, 
and  Keats.  It  gave  life  to  the  creation  of  historical 
romance  by  Sir  Walter   Scott.      It  mellowed  the   rich 


SIR   WALTER   SCOTT. 


584  ARISTOCRATIC    GOVERNMENT.         [1775-1S20 

eloquence  of  Burke,  and  even  Gibbon's  stately  narrative 
of  the  fall  of  Rome.  It  makes  the  essential  difference 
between  the  elegant  prose  of  Addison,  the  pompous 
prose  of  Dr.  Johnson,  and  the  genial  prose  of  Charles 
Lamb.  By  the  nev;^  feeling  that  came  into  it,  towards 
both  nature  and  man,  English  literature  took  on,  indeed, 
a  remarkably  changed  character  in  those  late  years  of 
the  eighteenth  century  and  early  years  of  the  nineteenth, 
which  may  be  called  the  revolutionary  age. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

368.  France  fallen  under  Napoleon. 

Topics. 

1.  Napoleon  First  Consul  and  new  coalition  formed. 

2.  Coalition  broken  up  and  England  alone  in  the  opposition. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1 225-1 227. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  was  the  Directory  .?  (2.)  Why 
could  England  better  afford  to  be  alone  in  the  opposition  than 
any  other  European  country  ? 

369.  The  Peace  of  Amiens  and  the  Renewal  of  War. 

Topics. 

1.  English  successes  and  the  Peace  of  Amiens. 

2.  War  again,  and  preparations  to  invade  England. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1236-1241. 

370.  Trafalgar  and  Austerlitz.  —  The  Death  of  Pitt. 

Topics. 

1.  Third  coalition  against  France. 

2.  Attempt  to  deceive  Nelson  and  its  result. 

3.  Battle  of  Trafalgar. 

4.  Third  coalition  broken  up  and  Pitt's  death. 
References.  —  Green,  820-822 ;  Rosebery,  Pitt,  ch.  iv. 

371.  The  Ministry  of  all  the  Talents  and  its  Tory 

Successor. 
Topics. 

1.  Formation  of  the  new  ministry. 

2.  Fox's  character  and  death. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.      585 

3,  Ministry  dissolved. 
Reference.  —  (Gardiner,  iii.  855-858. 

372.  British   Orders  in  Council    and  the  Continental 

System  of  Napoleon. 
Topics. 

1.  Napoleon  master  of  Europe. 

2.  British  orders  in  council  and  rights  of  search. 

3.  Napoleon's  Berlin  and  Milan  decrees. 

4.  Effect  of  Napoleon's  continental  system. 
Reference.  —  Green,  822-825. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  Why  did  Napoleon's  wars  give  the 
Americans  more  trade  ?  (2.)  Why  does  a  nation  try  to  stop  the 
commerce  of  another  nation  with  which  she  is  at  war?  (3.) 
How  would  such  action  alienate  other  nations  ?  (4.)  What  sort 
of  a  trade  is  a  blockade  sure  to  promote?  (5.)  Why  did  Eng- 
land suspect  that  English  sailors  might  be  found  on  American 
ships?     (Bright,  iii.  1326.) 

373.  Beginning  of  Quarrel  with  the  United  States. 
Topics. 

1.  Embargo  Act  and  Non-intercourse  Act. 

2.  Anger  at  the  exercise  of  the  "  right  to  search." 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  872,  873. 

374.  The  War  in  Spain. 
Topics. 

1.  Bonaparte's  oppression  of  Europe. 

2.  The  Peninsular  War. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1 286-1 321. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  great  colony  had  Portugal  in 
the  western  hemisphere  ?  (2.)  Of  what  use  was  it  to  her  after 
Napoleon  invaded  the  Spanish  Peninsula  ?  (Bright,  iii.  1288, 
1289.)  (3.)  What  change  in  the  territory  of  the  United  States 
was  effected  under  Napoleon  ? 

375.  Confirmed  Insanity  of  George  III.  —  Regency  of 

the  Prince  of  Wales. 
Topics. 

1.  King's  illness  and  the  regency. 

2.  Changes  in  the  cabinet. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1323-1325. 


586  CONFLICT    WITH    NAPOLEON. 

376.  The  Overthrow  of  Napoleon. 

Topics. 

1.  Exhaustion  of  Napoleon's  resources. 

2.  Russian  campaign  and  the  battle  of  Waterloo. 
References.  —  Green,   830-832,  834-836.     Waterloo  :  Gardiner, 

ill.  874,  Bright,  iii.   1339-1346;  Guest,  545-548  ;  Colby,  296-298  ; 
Creasy,  Fifteen  Decisive  Battles,  344-407. 

377.  War  with  the  United  States. 
Topics. 

1.  American  success  on  the  sea,  and  failure  on  land. 

2.  Treaty  of  Ghent. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1325-1328. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  unjustifiable  act  did  the  Brit- 
ish commit  in  this  war?  (Bright,  iii.  1327;  Green,  833.)  (2.) 
What  sort  of  places  only  can,  by  the  rules  of  war,  be  bom- 
barded ? 

378.  The  Breeding  of  Democratic  Discontent. 

Topics. 

1.  Taxation  in  England  and  distress  caused  by  inventions. 

2.  High  price  of  food  after  the  war  and  the  corn  laws. 

3.  Effect  of  this  class  legislation  upon  the  people. 

4.  Death  of  George  III.  and  succession  of  George  IV. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1350-1354. 

Research  Questions. — (i.)  How  does  machinery  confer  a  bene- 
fit on  the  world  if  it  deprives  people  of  employment  ?  (Cunning- 
ham and  McArthur,  227.)  (2.)  In  what  way  is  it  a  benefit  to 
employers  ?     (Cunningham  and  McArthur,  225.) 

379.  Literature  of  the  Period. 
Topics. 

1.  Great  poets  and  change  in  the  spirit  of  poetry. 

2.  Effect  of  the  time  on  prose  works. 


THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA. 
1820-1899. 


CHAPTER   XXVI. 

THE  ENDING  OF  THE  RULE  OF  THE  LANDLORDS. 

George  IV.  —  William  IV. — Victoria.     1820-1846. 

380.  Division  among  the  Tories.  The  discovery  of 
a  desperate  plot,  called  the  Cato  Street  conspiracy,  for 
the  murder  of  the  whole  cabinet,  and  a  trial  of  scanda- 
lous charges  which  the  disreputable  king  brought  against 
his  wife,  Queen  Caroline,  were  exciting  events  that 
opened  the  new  reign. 

The  Tory  ministry  was  now  yielding  to  the  influence 
of  its  more  open-minded  men.  They  were  led  by  George 
Canning  and  William  Huskisson,  and  opposed  by  Lord 
Liverpool,  Lord  Eldon,  the  Duke  of  Wellington  (who 
had  lately  entered  the  cabinet),  and  others  of  less  note. 
In  1822,  Canning  obtained  the  foreign  office  and  totally 
changed  the  spirit  of  the  policy  which  his  predecessor, 
Castlereao;h,    had    pursued.     Castlereafrh    had 

-,    r  I  .  1     Tvr  ^1  1    Canning's 

labored  for  the  most  part  with  Metternich  and  foreign 
the  Holy  Alliance,  on  the  continent,  to  bind  ^°^^^' 
the  hands  of  the  people  and  support  arbitrary  govern- 
ments in  power  (see  pages  564,  565).  Canning  at  once 
put  England  on  the  popular  side,  especially  in  the  ques- 
tion between  Spain  and  her  revolting  American  colonies, 
and  effectively  checked  the  great  imperial  conspiracy  in 
Europe  against  popular  rights. 


588 


THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA. 


[1822-1828 


Huskisson. 


At  the  same  time,  Mr.  Huskisson,  as  president  of  the 
Board  of  Trade,  began  to  turn  EngHsh  commercial  pohcy 
in  the  direction  of  greater  freedom,  according 
to  the  doctrines  taught  by  Adam  Smith.  Can- 
ning and  Huskisson  together  were  able  to  carry  through 
the  Commons  a  bill  which  moderated  the  iniquitous  corn 
laws,  but  it  failed  in  the  House  of  Lords. 

381.  Canning's   Ministry.      In  the  spring  of    1827, 

on  the  death  of  Lord 
Liverpool,  Canning's 
strength  in  Parliament 
caused  him  to  be  raised 
to  the  head  of  the  min- 
istry ;  but  Wellington 
and  other  unbending 
Tories  in  the  cabinet 
refused  to  serve  with 
him,  and  resigned. 
The  seceders  included 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  a  rising 
statesman,  who  after- 
wards showed  himself 
more  open  to  liberal 
convictions  than  Can- 
ning himself.  To  offset  the  Tory  secession,  many  Whigs 
came  to  the  support  of  the  new  premier ;  but  Canning's 
death,  only  four  months  after  he  rose  to  the  lead,  threw 
everything  back  into  its  former  state. 

382.  Wellington's  Ministry.  For  a  few  months  after 
Canning's  death  the  government  was  carried  on  by  his 
colleagues  and  followers,  under  a  weak  leader,  Lord  Gode- 
rich,  who  could  not  keep  unity  in  their  ranks.  In  Jan- 
uary, 1828,  they  resigned,  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
was  called  to  the  head  of  affairs.    That  signified  a  return 


GEORGE    CANNING. 


1S28-1829]       ENDING    OF    LANDLORD    RULE.  589 

of  extreme  Tories  to  power ;  but  even  extreme  Tories, 
with  the  stubbornness  of  Wellington,  found  it  no  longer 
possible  to  hold  their  old  ground.  The  real  states- 
man of  the  cabinet  formed  by  the  duke  was  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  who  took  the  lead  in  the  Commons,  and  whose 
conservative  mind  was  fast  receiving  new  light.  To  the 
confusion  and  wrath  of  a  large  number  in  their  party, 
the  Wellington  and  Peel  ministry  took  up  and  carried 
through  two  urgent  measures  of  reform  which  they  had 
been  expected  to  resist,  and  submitted  to  the  passage  of 
a  third.  They  carried  a  corn  bill,  nearly  identical  with 
that  of  Canning  and  Huskisson,  which  W^ellington  had 
defeated  little  more  than  a  year  before.  They  resisted, 
but  finally  connived  at,  a  partial  repeal  of  those  Reform 
venerably  intolerant  laws,  the  Corporation  and  "measures. 
Test  Acts  (see  sections  268,  276),  so  far  as  to  open  the 
door  of  office  to  Protestants  not  belonging  to  the  estab- 
lished church.  Lastly — most  amazing  of  all  —  Welling- 
ton himself  became  urgent  for  ''  Catholic  emancipation," 
—  for  the  admission,  that  is,  of  Roman  Catholics  to  Par- 
liament and  to  public  offices  in  general,  —  as  the  only 
means,  in  his  judgment,  of  saving  Ireland  from  civil  war. 
383.  Catholic  Braancipation.  A  great  leader  had 
arisen  among  the  Catholics  in  Ireland,  and  had  organized 
them  in  a  formidable  association  for  the  pressing  of  their 
demands.  This  was  DameLO'Cpnnell,  a  man  of  extraor- 
dinary power  in  oratory  and  in  personal  influence,  who 
commanded  the  masses  of  his  countrymen  like  a  king. 
He  had  caused  himself  to  be  elected  to  a  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment, defeating  one  of  the  officers  of  the  gov-  Daniel 
ernment,  and  Parliament  was  fairly  defied  to  O'Conneii.  . 
exclude  him,  by  requiring  the  oath  which  he  could  not,  as 
a  Catholic,  take.  Wellington,  whose  courage  none  could 
doubt,  and  Peel,  whose  cool  judgment  compelled  respect, 


590  THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA.  [1829-1830 

advised  their  party,  and  advised  the  king,  that  the  time 
for  yielding  on  this  great  question  had  come.  With  the 
help  of  Whigs  and  Canningites  they  carried  the  neces- 
sary bill  (April,  1829),  though  a  strong  body  of  the 
Tories  fought  it  obstinately  to  the  last. 

384.  Freedom  of  the  Press.  Savage  attacks  by  Tory 
newspapers  on  the  Wellington  ministry  led  to  vigorous 
prosecutions,  which  worked  a  conversion  of  Tory  feeling 
on  the  subject  of  freedom  for  the  press,  and  practically 
ended  attempts  in  England  to  restrain  public  criticism 
of  the  conduct  of  public  affairs.  But  heavy  taxes  on 
newspapers  and  tracts  remained  to  cripple  the  press,  and 
to  limit  its  power  for  some  years. 

385.  The  First  Railways.  It  was  at  this  time  that 
the  first  convincing  success  was  reached  in  the  use  of 
railways  for  carriages  drawn  by  steam  power.  During 
several  years,  George  Stephenson,  a  self-educated  engi- 
neer, had  been  experimenting  in  the  construction  of  steam 
locomotives,  and  in  1825  he  had  completed  a  short  line 
of  railway  from  Stockton  to  Darlington,  in  Durham 
county ;  but  his  invention  fully  triumphed  when  Liver- 
pool and  Manchester  were  joined  by  a  railway,  opened 
with  ceremony  in  September,  1830.  The  event  was 
saddened  by  an  accident  which  caused  the  death  of  Mr. 
Huskisson,  the  able  leader  of  economic  reform. 

The  use  of  steam  power  in  propelling  boats  had  reached 
steam-  succcss  some  twenty  years  before,  after  long 
boats.  experimenting   by  many  persons,  in  America, 

England,  and  France. 

386.  Death  of  George  IV.  —  Accession  of  William 
IV.  In  June,  1830,  the  king  died,  and  was  succeeded  by 
his  more  reputable  brother,  William,  Duke  of  Clarence, 
who  had  little  ability,  but  good  intentions,  and  simple 
and  popular  ways,     The  Wellington  ministry  stayed  in 


1830] 


ENDING    OF    LANDLORD    RULE. 


591 


office  until  November,  when  it  found  itself  facing,  in  a 
newly  elected  Parliament,  such  a  resolute  demand  for 
parliamentary  reform  that  it  felt  obliged  to  give  up  office 
to  the  friends  of  the  reform.  A  cabinet  of  Whigs  and 
Canningites  was  accordingly  formed,  under  Earl  Grey, 
who  had  been  urging  action  on  the  subject  since  1792. 

387.  The  First  Reform  BilL     Agitation  for  a  true  re- 
presentation of  the  people  in  Parliament  had  been  freshly 


Stephenson's  locomotive,  "  rocket." 
Adopted  for  use  on  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  Railway,  1829. 


stimulated  by  the  Revolution  of  1830,  in  France  (see 
page  565),  In  the  great  manufacturing  cities,  like  Leeds, 
Birmingham,  and  Manchester,  that  were  growing  up  with 
no  voice  in  Parliament,  and  in  the  numerous  lesser  towns 
that  had  risen  since  seats  in  Parliament  were  assigned, 
there  had  come  to  be  a  population  too  strong  in  numbers. 


592  THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA.  [1830 

in  intelligence,  and  in  wealth,  to  be  submissive  any  longer 
to  the  mere  landlords'  rule,  which  a  pretence  of  repre- 
sentation for  the  "commons"  of  England  served  only  to 
maintain. 

As  we  have  seen  (see  section  65),  the  making  up  of 
the  House  of  Commons  was  begun  by  the  election  of 
two  or  four  knights  from  each  county  or  shire.  Then 
certain  boroughs  or  towns  were  called  upon  to  send 
representatives  ;  but  such  boroughs  were  never  named 
in  any  law.  Either  the  *king  or  his  sheriffs  selected 
them  as  they  saw  fit.  In  many  instances,  moreover, 
towns  of  some  importance  were  stricken  from  the 
sheriffs'  lists  on  their  own  petition,  because  of  the  ex- 
pense involved.  Thus  the  borough  representation  in 
Parliament  was  originally  distributed  in  a  very  haphazard 
way  ;  and  after  a  time,  by  mere  custom,  that  chance 
arrangement  became  fixed.  Certain  boroughs  were  sup- 
posed to  have  acquired  the  right  to  seats  in 
representa-  Parliament,  and  the  right  belonged  nowhere 
else.  Many  of  them  remained  as  they  were  in 
the  fifteenth  century,  mere  villages,  while  new  towns 
grew  up  around  them  ;  some  disajopeared,  —  Old  Sarum, 
for  example,  from  which  the  moving  of  Salisbury  Cathe- 
dral to  a  new  site  carried  all  the  population  away,  six 
centuries  before.  But  the  old  boroughs,  or,  rather,  the 
owners  of  the  ground  on  which  the  old  boroughs  stood, 
were  still  sending  members  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  the  populous  new  cities  and  towns  of  England  were 
allowed  to  send  none. 

As  a  consequence,  facts  gathered  in  1793  showed  then 
that  307  members,  being  a  clear  majority  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  were  actually  chosen  by  154  persons,  of 
whom  40  were  peers.  The  state  of  facts  in  1830  had 
been  changed  somewhat  for  the  better,  but  not  much. 


1831-1832]        ENDING    OF   LANDLORD    RULE.  593 

Even  where  towns  of  respectable  population  were  repre- 
sented, the  election  of  members  had  fallen  into  inequaii- 
the  hands  of  corporation  councils  (see  page  rem-gsenta- 
230),  which  acted  under  influences  opposed  to  *^o"- 
the  interests  of  the  people  at  large.  In  the  counties, 
the  suffrage  was  very  limited,  and  landlord  influence  pre- 
vailed. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  outrageous  constitution  of  Par- 
liament, which  England  would  endure  no  longer,  and 
which  the  king  had  appointed  ministers  to  reform.  Their 
reform  bill  was  brought  into  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  first  day  of  March,  183 1,  but  the  support  it  received 
did  not  promise  success,  and  the  king  was  persuaded  to 
dissolve  Parliament,  giving  the  voters  an  opportunity  in  a 
new  election  to  manifest  their  wish.  The  voters  were 
very  far  from  representing  the  nation,  but  its  feeling 
acted  on  them  so  strongly  that  they  sent  up  to  the  Com- 
mons an  overwhelming  majority  for  the  bill.  It  was  car- 
ried through  the  Commons  in  September,  but  rejected 
by  the  Tory  House  of  Lords  ;  and  alarming  excitement 
and  riot  ensued  in  London  and  other  towns.  The  Re- 
Parliament  was  prorogued  until  winter,  when  a  fo^"^^iii- 
new  reform  bill  which  passed  the  Commons  was  man- 
gled with  destructive  amendments  by  the  Lords.  The 
king  was  then  asked  to  overcome  the  hostile  majority 
in  the  upper  House  by  a  creation  of  new  peers  ;  but  he 
refused,  and  the  ministers  resigned.  This  raised  public 
excitement  to  so  dangerous  a  pitch  that  the  king  yielded, 
recalled  Lord  Grey,  and  promised  the  needed  crea- 
tion of  peers.  His  promise  sufficed.  Rather  than  be 
swamped  in  their  House  the  Lords  gave  way  and  passed 
the  bill  (June  7,  1832). 

388.   The  Beginning  of  a  Democratic  Constitution. 
Fifty-six  of  what  were  known  as  the  "rotten  boroughs" 


594  THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA.  [1832-1833 

of  the  past  were  swept  away  by  the  act,  and  many  small 
boroughs  which  had  been  sending  two  members  to  Par- 
liament lost  one.  The  seats  thus  emptied  were  given 
partly  to  the  large  counties,  but  mostly  to  the  greater 
towns.  The  suffrage,  or  right  of  voting  for  members  of 
Parliament,  was  largely  extended ;  but  still  the  great 
mass  of  the  poorer  population,  and  the  large  class  of 
young  men  who«were  not  householders,  remained  with- 
out votes. 

The  widening  of  the  franchise,  however,  was  great 
enough  to  give  a  democratic  character  to  the  constitu- 
tion of  England  which  it  had  never  possessed  before. 
Until  this  time  the  government  had  been  that  of  an  aris- 
tocratic class.  The  so-called  commons  represented  in 
Parliament  could  be  looked  at  as  nothing  else.  They 
had  been  about  half  a  million  in  number,  hold- 

The  demo-     .  t.-      1       •    ,  1  •   ,  .,1. 

cratic  mg  political   rights   which  twenty   millions  or 

more  of  their  fellow-citizens  did  not  share.  It 
was  a  very  broad-based  aristocracy,  but  it  was  an  aristo- 
cracy, nevertheless.  Now  the  base  was  broadened  enough 
to  take  in  a  real  part  of  the  English  common  people,  and 
the  making  of  a  democratic  constitution  was  begun. 

389.  Work  of  the  Reformed  Parliaraent.  The  new 
electors  were  given  an  immediate  opportunity  to  choose 
a  new  Parliament,  and  when  it  came  together  there 
seemed  to  be  nothing  in  the  way  of  wrongs  that  the 
Commons  were  not  ready  to  reform.  The  same  spirit 
prevailed  in  the  ministry,  and  remarkable  work  was  done 
during  the  following  year.  Slavery  in  the  British  colo- 
nies was  abolished  (August  30,  1833),  ;£20,ooo,ooo  being 
paid  in  compensation  to  the  owners  of  the  emancipated 
Abolition  blacks.  Somc  steps  were  taken  to  make  the 
of  slavery,  established  Protestant  church  in  Ireland  a  little 
less  oppressive  to  the  Catholics,  who  were  tithed  and 


^^33] 


ENDING   OF    LANDLORD    RULE. 


595 


otherwise  taxed  for  its  support.     The  first  of  a  series  of 
humane  laws,   to  Umit  and  regulate  the  employment  of 
children  in   factories,   was    passed.     The    first    national 
appropriation   of  money  in  aid  of  common  schools  was 
made  ;  but  it  was  only  ;£20,ooo.     The  commercial  mo- 
nopoly of  the  East  India  Company  was  taken  away  and 
the  Indian  trade  thrown  open  to  all.     The  poor  law  was 
amended  ;  the  corrupting  evil  of  sinecure  offices  was  at- 
tacked, and  the  brutality  of  army  floggings  was  checked. 
390.  New  Party  Names.     The  reforming  majority  in 
Parliament  included  a  number  of  democratic  politicians, 
brought  in  by  the  new 
voters,    who    wanted 
radical   changes  that 
were  alarming  to  the 
^;lder  school  of  Whigs. 
A^s  it  also  included  a 
number  of  Irish  mem- 
bers, whose   sole  in- 
terest   was    in    Irish 
questions,    it   was    a 
party  not  very  solidly 
made    up.      On    the 
other  side,  among  the 
Tories,   a   new  split, 
like  that  in  Canning's 
time,  was   beginning 
to  appear,   one    divi- 
sion, under  Peel,  moving  forward,  to  accept  the  altered 
state  of  things  ;  the  other  holding  back.     Party  ties,  in 
fact,  were  greatly  loosened,  and  Tories  who  inclined  to 
liberality  were  soon  beginning  to  exchange  places  with 
Whi2:s  of  a  conservative  state  of  mind.     Thus  the  two 
great  parties  of  later  English  history,  the  Conservative 


SIR    ROBERT    PEEL. 


596  THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA.  [1834-1S27 

and  the  Liberal,  were  having  their  birth,  and  it  was  at 
this  time,  or  soon  after,  that  they  took  to  themselves 
those  better  names. 

391.  The  Last  Years  of  the  Reign  of  William  IV. 
Disagreements  among  his  colleagues  caused  the  resigna- 
tion of  Earl  Grey,  in  the  summer  of  1834,  and  the  reform 
ministry  was  led  for  a  time  by  Lord  Melbourne  ;  but  in 
November  the  king,  who  had  no  love  for  the  reformers, 
found  excuses  for  dismissing  them,  and  for  calling  back 
Wellington  and  Peel.  This  was  the  last  English  ministry 
ever  put  out  of  ofifice  by  royal  command.  From  that  day 
to  this,  no  such  change  has  been  made  without  a  vote  in 
the  House  of  Commons  which  signified  its  wish.  And 
thus  the  ministerial  government  of  England  became  fully 
a  responsible  government,  —  responsible  to  Parliament 
alone. 

The  experience  of  the  Wellington-Peel  ministry  soon 
established  this  fact.  They  could  do  nothing  with  the 
majority  against  them  in  the  popular  House,  and  they 
failed  to  change  it  in  their  favor  by  a  new  election.  Peel 
Ministerial  ^^^^  ^  t)old  announcement  of  his  readiness  to 
bint°"s^  take  up  reforming  work,  but  the  majority  was 
tabiished.  g^j||  against  him  in  the  new  House.  In  the 
spring  of  1835  he  gave  way,  and  the  Melbourne  ministry 
was  recalled.  Lord  Melbourne  was  an  indolent  man,  and 
little  of  importance  was  done  while  he  held  the  reins. 

In  June,  1837,  King  William  died,  and  was  succeeded 

by  Victoria,  daughter  of  his  younger  brother,  the  Duke 

of  Kent.     The  young  queen  was  at   that   time  eighteen 

years  of  age.    This  separated  the  English  crown 

of  Queen      from  that  of  Hanover.      The  latter  passed  to 

Viotori  ft 

the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  fifth  son  of  George 
ITT.,  as  the  nearest  male  heir. 

392.  Early  Years   of    the  Victorian    Reign.     **  The 


1837-1839]       ENDING    OF    LANDLORD    RULE.  597 

age  of  electricity,"  as  we  often  call  the  present  time, 
may  be  said  to  have  had  its  beginning  at  the  beginning 
of  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  since  experiments  in 
electric  telegraphy  —  the  first  practical  use  of  electricity 
that  was  made  —  reached  positive  success  in  the  year 
that  she  was  crowned  ;  but  the  first  working  line  of 
electric  telegraph,  between  Washington  and  Baltimore, 
in  the  United  States,  was  not  constructed  until  1844. 

At  the  outset  of  her  reign,  the  government  of  the 
young  queen  had  to  deal  with  a  rebellion  in  Canada, 
arising  mainly  from  a  demand  by  the  colonial  people  for 
more  control  of  their  legislatures,  but  aggravated  in  the 
province  of  Lower  Canada  by  bad  feeling  between  the 
few  English  settlers  and  officials  and  the  far  Canadian 
greater  numbers  of  the  Canadian  French.  The  rebellion, 
rebellion  (known  in  America  as  "  the  Patriot  War  ")  was 
suppressed  with  needless  severity ;  but  the  chief  causes 
of  discontent  were  afterwards  removed,  by  changes  in 
the  colonial  government,  under  which  the  two  proyinces 
of  Upper  and  Lower  Canada  were  united  in  one. 

An  appalling  disaster  to  the  British  arms  was  brought 
about,  in  1839,  ^Y  ^^^^  worse  than  folly  of  the  governor- 
general  of  India,  Lord  Auckland,  who  had  sent 

r  •  ATI-  1  11      •  1-  Disaster  in 

forces  mto  Afghanistan  to  meddle  m  a  dispute  Afghanis- 

tfl.ll 

between  two  rivals  for  its  throne.  The  incom- 
petent commander  of  the  army  allowed  it  to  be  surprised 
and  helplessly  besieged  in  Cabul  ;  then  sought  and  ob- 
tained permission  to  retreat,  but  was  treacherously  at- 
tacked in  the  mountain  passes,  where  little  resistance 
could  be  made.  One  man  alone,  of  more  than  15,000, 
escaped  by  chance,  to  tell  the  awful  tale.  With  prompt 
energy  the  Afghans  were  chastised,  but  the  horrible  dis- 
aster was  beyond  repair. 

Another  dark  event  that   occurred  in  these  years  — 


598  THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA.  [1840-1841 

not  disastrous  to  England,  but  more  shameful  than  the 
The  Opium  tragedy  in  Afghanistan  —  was  an  attack  upon 
^*^-  China  which  is  known  as  "the  Opium  War." 

For  the  good  of  its  people,  the  Chinese  government  was 
endeavoring  to  stoj^  the  bringing  of  opium  into  the  coun- 
try, and  took  rough  measures  against  a  systematic  smug- 
gling of  the  drug  from  India  which  was  carried  on,  by 
English  traders,  on  an  enorjnous  scale.  The  Chinese 
officials  were  insulting  in  some  things  that  they  did  ;  but 
there  was  little  excuse  for  the  action  of  the  British  gov- 
ernment, in  1840,  when  it  took  up  the  cause  of  the  opium 
smugglers,  and  forced  China  to  open  her  ports  to  their 
trade.  The  better  feeling  of  the  English  people  was 
sternly  roused  on  the  subject  by  Bright,  Cobden,  and 
others,  who  denounced  the  war. 

Government  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Melbourne 
ministry  until  1841  ;  but  it  gradually  lost  support  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  was  harassed  by  opposition 
from  the  Lords.  Its  most  vigorous  but  least  scrupulous 
administration  was  in  foreign  affairs,  conducted  by  Lord 
Penny  Palmcrston,  who  had  been  a  disciple  of  Can- 
postage,  ning  and  had  passed  over  to  the  Whigs.  Its 
most  notable  achievement  in  domestic  measures  was  the 
great  postal  reform,  brought  about  by  Rowland  Hill 
(1840-41),  which  reduced  letter  postage  in  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  to  a  penny,  and  provided  for  its  payment  by 
stamps. 

In  1840  Queen  Victoria's  marriage  to  her  cousin. 
Prince  Albert  of  Saxe-Coburg,  occurred,  and 
of  the  proved  to  be  a  singularly  happy  union,  as  for- 
tunate for  England  as  for  the  queen. 

393.  The  Chartist  Agitation.  These  early  years  of 
the  reign  were  disturbed  by  an  agitation  that  arose  in 
that  great  hard-working  body  of  the  English  people  who 


1838-1841]        ENDING    OF    LANDLORD    RULE.  599 

were  still  excluded  from  political  rights.  In  1838  it  took 
the  form  of  a  demand  for  what  was  called  "  The  People's 
Charter,"  that  being  a  document  which  embodied  six 
democratic  claims,  namely  :  Universal  suffrage  for  men  ; 
apportionment  of  representation  in  Parliament  by  equal 
districts  ;  vote  by  ballot  ;  annual  parliaments ;  pay  to 
members  of  Parliament,  and  no  property  qualification  for 
such  members.  The  reformed  Parliament  was  not  yet 
democratic  enough  to  give  even  respectful  treatment  to  a 
monster  petition  in  behalf  of  the  Charter,  which  came  to 
it  in  1839.  This  excited  a  righteous  anger  among  the 
Chartists,  as  they  called  themselves  ;  their  demonstra- 
tions became  threatening  and  riotous,  and  were  harshly 
suppressed. 

394.  Peel  and  the  Abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws. 
While  the  Liberals  had  been  losing  ground.  Peel  and 
his  party  had  been  gaining,  and  the  government  passed 
to  them,  in  1841,  with  a  strong  majority  in  a  newly 
elected  House.  Then  began  a  new  period  of  reforming 
work,  quite  as  remarkable  as  that  of  1833-34,  ^^'^^^  pos- 
sibly more  important  in  effect.  Peel  had  shed  the  old 
Toryism,  far  more  than  his  party  had  done,  and  he  soon 
left  the  bulk  of  the  party  behind  him,  as  he  went  for- 
ward in  measures  which  needed  help  from  the  Liberals 
to  carry  them  through. 

The  oppression  of  the  corn  laws  had  been  lessened 
by  several  amendments  since  18 15,  but  they  still  taxed 
the  food  of  the  people  very  grievously,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  landlords,  to  whom  they  gave  "  protected  "  high 
rents.  Since  1838,  a  powerful  agitation  for  their  total 
repeal  had  been  carried  on,  by  an  Anti-Corn-Law  League, 
the  ablest  and  most  energetic  workers  in  which  were 
Richard  Cobden,  Charles  Villiers,  and  John  Bright.  Peel 
first  attempted  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  League  by 


6oo 


THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA. 


[1841-1846 


another  lowering  of  the  duties  on  wheat  and  other  corn, 
in  a  sliding  scale  ;  but  the  nation,  stirred  to  its  depths 
by  the  League,  was  not  content.  The  terrible  famine 
Famine  in  ^f  1 845-47,  in  Ireland,  produced  by  a  disease 
Ireland.  which  destroyed  the  potato  crop,  on  which  half 
the  people  lived,  brought  an  argument  that  nothing  could 
refute,  to  enforce  the  demand  for  free  food.  Peel  sur- 
rendered to  it,  parted  with  many  of  his  colleagues  and 
political  friends,  and  carried  a  bill  (July,  1846)  for  the 
abolition  of  the  corn  laws,  by  the  help  of  the  Liberal 
vote. 

395.  Further  Progress  towards  Free  Trade.  The 
whole  theory  of  protective  duties  was  falling  with  the  fall 

of  the  protective  corn 
duties,  so  far  as  English 
opinion  was  concerned. 
Already,  in  1842,  and 
again  in  1845,  P^^l  had 
carried  forward  Huskis- 
son's  work  of  lowering 
or  abolishing  duties  on 
many  imports,  especially 
on  raw  materials,  and 
the  same  work  went 
steadily  on,  under  Peel's 
successors,  until  no  ves- 
tige of  protective  duties 
remained  to  limit  the  freedom  of  British  trade.  The 
last  of  the  restrictive  navigation  laws  went  with  them  in 
1849. 

396.  Ireland.  When  Catholic  emancipation  had  been 
attained,  O'Connell  became  an  agitator  for  the  repeal  of 
the  union  of  Ireland  with  England,  and  for  an  independ- 
ent Parliament  to   be  restored  to  the  former  kingdom. 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL. 


1841-1846]        ExNDING    OF    LANDLORD    RULE.  601 

The  movement  he  stirred  up  became  so  threatening  in 
1841  that  he  was  arrested  and  sentenced  by  a  Dublin 
court  to  imprisonment  for  two  years.  On  appeal,  how- 
ever, to  the  House  of  Lords,  the  sentence  was  annulled 
and  he  was  released ;  but  age  and  its  infirmities  had  prac- 
tically ended  his  career.  He  was  succeeded  by  « young 
a  "Young  Ireland  "  party,  which  aimed  at  ac-  ^^'ei^^d." 
tual  rebellion,  and  which  worked  for  some  years  to  that 
end. 

Previously,  church  questions  had  been  foremost  in  the 
grievances  of  Ireland  ;  but  now  the  "  land  question  "  — 
the  question  of  wrongs  suffered  by  a  helpless 
peasant    tenantry  under  landlords  who    rarely  land 
lived    on    their  estates  —  was    coming   to    the  ^^^^  ^°"' 
front.     It  was  the  most  serious  of  Irish  questions  in  the 
end. 

397.  Boundary  Treaties  with  the  United  States.  In 
foreign  affairs,  the  administration  of  Peel  was  most  dis- 
tinguished by  the  successful  closing  of  two  threatening 
boundary  disputes  between  Canada  and  the  United 
States.  By  what  is  known  as  ,the  Ashburton  treaty, 
in  1842,  the  northeastern  boundary  of  the  latter  was 
determined,  and  by  another  treaty  concluded  in  1846 
the  more  troublesome  Oregon  boundary  was  defined. 

398.  The  Close  of  Peel's  Ministry.  Peel's  opponents 
in  his  own  party,  who  accused  him.  of  betraying  them, 
found  an  opportunity  to  defeat  one  of  his  bills,  on  the 
very  day  of  the  passage  of  his  free-corn  bill,  and  he  re- 
signed. A  Liberal  ministry,  under  Lord  John  Russell, 
was  then  formed. 


6o2  ENDING   OF   LANDLORD   RULE. 

TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

380.  Division  araong  the  Tories. 

Topics. 

1.  The  Cato  Street  conspiracy. 

2.  The  new  Tory  influence  and  Canning's  foreign  poHcy. 

3.  Work  of  Huskisson. 

Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1364-1370,  1376-1381. 

381.  Canning's  Ministry. 

Topic. 

I.  Change  in  the  cabinet  and  Canning's  death. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  882-885. 

382.  Wellington's  Ministry. 

Topics. 

1.  Circumstances  bringing  Wellington  to  power. 

2.  Reform  measures  carried  by  Wellington  and  Peel. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1 395-1402. 

383.  Catholic  Emancipation. 
Topics.  , 

1.  Daniel  O'Connell. 

2.  The  bill  for  Catholic  emancipation. 

References. — Bright,  iii.  1 402-1 409  ;  Gardiner,  iii,  895,  896; 
Montague,  195-198  ;  Colby,  303-306;  Thursfield,  Peel,  ch.  iv. ; 
Taswell-Langmead,  753  ;  May,  ii.  chs.  xii.  and  xiii. 

384.  Freedom  of  the  Press. 
Topic. 

I.  Persecution  of  newspapers  and  its  results. 
Reference.  —  Taswell-Langmead,  756-766. 

385.  The  First  Railways. 
Topics. 

1.  The  Stockton  and  Darlington  line. 

2.  The  Liverpool  and  Manchester  line. 

3.  Steam  power  in  boats. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  906-909. 


TOPICS,  REFERENCES,  AND  QUESTIONS.       603 

386.  Death  of  George  IV.  —  Accession  of  William  IV. 
Topic. 

I.  William's  character  and  the  new  cabinet. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  898-902. 

387.  The  First  Reform  Bill. 

Topics. 

1.  The  demands  from  towns  and  cities  for  representation. 

2.  Condition  of  borough  and  county  representation. 

3.  Opposition  of  the  Lords  to  a  reform  bill. 

4.  Overcoming  of  this  opposition  and  passage  of  a  bill. 
References.  —  Bright,  iii.   1423-1434;    Gardiner,    iii.   902-905; 

Green,  839;  Tliursfield,  Peel,  ch.  v. ;  Colby,  306-308;  Montague, 
206-208  ;  Ransome,  247-249;  Traill,  vi.  9-1 1  ;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  527- 

530;  May,  i.  333-341- 
Research  Questions.  — (i.)  What  is  a  parHamentary  bill  ?  (2.) 
What  is  the  process  of  getting  it  passed?  (Gardiner,  iii.  903, 
footnote.)  (3.)  What  was  the  condition  of  the  franchise  up  to 
this  time?  (Ransome,  239,  243,  244.)  (4.)  In  what  way  did  the 
American  Revolution  and  the  Wilkes  struggle  affect  the  ques- 
tion of  reform  ?  (Ransome,  239.)  (5.)  What  effect  did  the 
French  Revolution  have?  (Ransome,  241.)  (6.)  Describe  the 
difficulties  of  passing  the  Reform  Bill.  (Ransome,  245-248.) 
(7.)  Sum  up  the  results  of  the  bill.     (Ransome,  248,  249.) 

388.  The  Beginning  of  a  Democratic  Constitution. 

Topics. 

1.  Revision  of  the  boroughs  and  widening  of  the  franchise. 

2.  Change  begun  in  the  character  of  the  constitution. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iii.  1434-1456. 

389.  Work  of  the  Reformed  Parliament. 

Topics. 

1.  Spirit  of  the  new  Parliament. 

2.  Reforms  that  it  accomplished. 

References. —  Bright,  iii.  1434-1456.  Trades  unions:  Bright, 
iv.  38,  39,402-404,  502-506,  574;  Gibbins,  190,  191,  207,  220- 
222;  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  loS,  109,  234;  Howell's  Con- 
flict of  Capital  and  Labor;  McCarthy,  ii.  346,  347,  391-411  ; 
Cunningham,  ii.  588,  589,  614-616,  644-650;  Traill,  v.  341-345, 
491-493,  616,  617,  and  vi.  92,  93,  221-224,  423-425,  610-614. 


604  ENDING    OF    LANDLORD    RULE. 

Research  Questions — (i.)  Discuss  the  justice  of  public  taxa- 
tion to  support  the  church.  (2.)  In  what  countries  are  churches 
given  such  support  to-day?  (3.)  What  is  our  practice  as  to  the 
relation  of  church  and  state  .'*  (4,)  What  made  parents  send 
their  children  to  work  in  factories?  (Gibbins,  178.)  (5.)  Describe 
the  condition  of  children  in  these  factories.  (Gibbins,  179,  180.) 
(6.)  Were  they  any  better  off  if  employed  at  home  ?  (Cunning- 
ham and  McArthur,  215.)  (7.)  In  what  other  employments  did 
they  suffer?  (Cunningham  and  McArthur,  215,  219.)  (8.)  What 
was  the  effect  of  this  upon  domestic  life?  (Gibbins,  178,  182.) 
(9.)  What  would  be  the  effect  of  this  treatment  of  children  upon 
the  next  generation  of  laborers?  (10.)  What  was  the  first  mea- 
sure for  the  relief  of  children  ?  (Cunningham  and  McArthur, 
215,  216.)  (II.)  What  other  measures  were  enforced?  (Cunning- 
ham and  McArthur,  218.)  (12.)  What  laws  have  we  in  this 
country  with  reference  to  employment  of  children?  (13.)  Con- 
trast the  public  school  systems  of  England  and  the  United 
States  at  the  present  time. 

390.  New  Party  Names. 
Topics. 

1.  Split  among  Whigs  and  Tories. 

2.  Reorganization  and  change  in  names  of  political  parties. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  909.  Abolition  of  slavery:  Gardi- 
ner, iii.  910  ;  Bright  iii.  1142,  1271,  1272,  1381-1383,  1442-1445. 
Poor  laws:  Gardiner,  iii.  911;  Bright,  iii.  1228,  1333,  1361, 
1451-1453;  Gibbins,  187;  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  94,  103, 
249 :  Montague,  224 ;  Taswell-Langmead,  477-480. 

391.  The  Last  Years  of  the  Reign  of  William  IV. 
Topics. 

1.  Last  dismissal  of  a  ministry  by  the  king. 

2.  Failure  of  its  successor  and  Melbourne  ministry  recalled. 

3.  King's  death  and  succession  of  Victoria. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iv.  1-4. 

392.  Early  Years  of  the  Victorian  Reign. 
Topics. 

1.  Beginning  of  the  age  of  electricity. 

2.  Canadian  rebellion  and  disaster  in  Afghanistan. 

3.  The  Opium  War  and  postal  reform. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,   AND    QUESTIONS.     6o$ 

4.  The  queen's  marria<^e. 
References.  —  Gardiner,   iii.  914-922;  P>right,  iv.  5-71.     Opium 
War:  Bright,  iv.  71-76;  Guest,  559  ;   McCarthy,  History  of  Our 
Own  Times,  i.  ch.  viii. 

393.  The  Chartist  Agitation. 
Topics. 

1.  The  six  claims  of  the  People's  Charter. 

2.  Chartist  demonstration  and  suppression. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  922-924.  The  factory  system  and 
Factory  Acts:  Gardiner,  iii.  8y6,  911,  927;  Bright,  iv.  39,  40, 
97,  98,  170,  171;  Gibbins,  160,  175-186;  Traill,  v.  591-604,  vi. 
217-219,368-372,  423,615;  Cunningham  and  McArthur,  215- 
235  ;  McCarthy,  i.  203-207  :  Cunningham,  ii.  590,  61 1-643. 

Research  Question. — (i.)  The  chartist  agitation  arose  from 
what  condition  of  the  poor?     (Gardiner,  iii.  922,  923.) 

394.  Peel  and  the  Abolition  of  the  Corn  Laws. 
Topics. 

1.  The  new  ministry  and  the  agitation  against  the  corn  laws. 

2.  Famine  in  Ireland  and  repeal  of  corn  laws. 
References.  —  Thursfield,   Peel,  ch.  x.  ;  Gardiner,   iii.  931-933; 

Bright,  iv.  128-133,  135-138,  1 56-161  ;  McCarthy,  i.  ch.  xvii. ; 
Cunningham  and  McArthur,  84-89,  164:  Gibbins,  199,  202; 
Cunningham,  ii.  679-682. 
Research  Questions. — (i.)  Were  other  food  products  scarce  in 
Ireland  at  the  time  of  the  famine?  (Traill,  vi.  247.)  (2.)  Who 
introduced  the  potato  into  Ireland  ?  (Encyclopaedia  Britannica, 
"  Ireland.")  (3.)  What  connection  is  there  between  the  political 
conditions  of  Ireland  and  the  cultivation  of  the  potato  ?  (Same 
reference.) 

395.  Further  Progress  toward  Free  Trade. 
Topic. 

I.  Gradual  repeal  of  all  protective  duties  and  taxes. 
References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  924,926,929-931,  938;  Bright,  iv. 

50-52,  79-87,  116,  123,  124,  130-138,  219,  222,  226-228;  Guest, 

560  ;   McCarthy,  i.  chs.  xiv.  and  xv. 

396.  Ireland. 

Topics. 

I.  O'Connell's  renewed  efforts  for  Irish  independence. 


6o6  ENDING   OF    LANDLORD    RULE. 

2.  Young  Ireland  party  and  the  land  question. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iv.  128-130. 

397.  Boundary  Treaties  with  the  United  States. 
Topic. 

I.  The  Ashburton  treaty. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iv.  144-146. 
Research  Question.  —  (i.)  What  were  the  respective  claims  of 

England  and  the  United  States  which  this  treaty  settled. 

398.  The  Close  of  Peel's  Ministry. 
Topic. 

I.  Cause  of  his  resignation. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  i  v.  139,  140. 


LINEAGE   OF  THE   HANOVERIAN  SOVEREIGNS  OF  ENGLAND, 
FROM    JAMES     I.,    OF    ENGLAND, 

1st  Generation.  2d.  3d.  4th.  5th. 

f         Elizabeth,  f    ^ophia 

James  I.      J  married  J      prnP^T    |  George  I.,  |  George  II., 

o/England.\        Frederick  V.,  \  £jZl/,y\    1714-1727.   \    1727-1760. 

t  Elector  Palatine.  ^  Ha7wvcr. 

5th.  6th.  7th.  8th.  9th. 

George  IV., 
1 820-1 830. 

George  II.,  (  Frederick,  f  George  III.,  1        18^0-18^7     ' 
1727-1760.    )  died  1751.  I      1760-1820. 

n  ?Ta''  ,   (  Victoria, 
Duke  0/  Ketit,  \        o     _     ' 

died  1820.      ^      '*37  • 


CHAPTER    XXVII. 

growth  of  democracy. 
Queen  Victoria.     1846-1899. 

399.  The  Russell  Ministry.  Peel,  and  a  number  of 
followers,  called  Peelites,  now  held  an  independent  place 
in  Parliament,  between  the  Conservatives  and  the  Lib- 
erals, but  acted  generally  with  the  latter.  Next  to  their 
chief,  the  ablest  of  the  Peelites  was  William  E.  Gladstone, 
fast  rising  to  fame.  The  Conservatives  had  found  their 
leader  in  Benjamin  Disraeli,  a  man  of  showy  talents  and 
shallow  convictions,  who  entered  Parliament  as  a  Radical 
at  the  beginning  of  Queen  Victoria's  reign. 

The  Russell  ministry  held  a  difficult  position  and  dealt 
with  many  troubles  for  six  years.     It  had  to  give  relief 
to  starving  Ireland,  and  it  made  a  beginning  in  attempts 
to  give  the  Irish  peasants  some  rights  which  their  land- 
lords would  have  to  respect.     It  had  to  over-  Young 
come  disorders  in  both  England  and    Ireland,  and^the 
excited  by  revolutionary  movements  on  the  con-  chartists, 
tinent,  in  1848   (see  page  565).      In  England,  the  Char- 
tists revived  their  agitation,  and  threatened  to  go  in  a 
body,  200,000  strong,  with  their  petition,  to  Westminster 
Hall.     In  Ireland,  the  Young  Ireland  party  made  a  weak 
attempt  at  rebellion,  and  its  leaders,  Mitchell,  Meagher, 
O'Brien,  and  others,  were  transported  for  long  terms  or 
for  life. 

By  founding  a  few  schools  for  the  training  of  ele- 
mentary teachers,  this  ministry  did  a  little  to  cultivate 


6o8  THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA.  [1850-1854 

the  idea,  which  grew  very  slowly  in  England,  that  gov- 
ernment had  some  duty  to  perform  in  the  mat- 
Education,  f    1  1  •  r    1  1 

ter  or  the  education  01  the  common  people. 
The  glory  of  the  most  notable  event  in  this   period 
belongs  to  Prince  Albert,  the  uncrowned  hus- 

The  first  r     ^ 

World's  band  of  the  queen,  who  conceived  and  planned 
an  International  Exhibition  of  Industries,  at 
London,  in  185 1,  —  the  first  of  the  great  World's  Fairs. 

When  Louis  Napoleon,  in  that  peaceful  year,  overthrew 
the  French  republic  by  a  murderous  surprise  and  made 
Palmer-  himsclf  empcror.  Lord  Palmerston,  the  English 
Louis  ^^  foreign  secretary,  approved  the  foul  deed  in  a 
Napoleon,  dispatch  which  caused  him  to  be  dismissed ; 
but  next  year  he  revenged  himself  on  his  late  associates 
by  carrying  a  vote  against  them,  and  they  resigned. 

The  Conservatives  then  undertook  the  government, 
with  Lord  Derby  at  its  head  and  Disraeli  for  leader  in 
the  House.  They  dissolved  Parliament,  declared  their 
intention  to  revive  the  protective  policy,  and  were  beaten 
on  that  issue  so  decisively  that  it  has  never  since  ap- 
peared in  English  politics.  The  short-lived 
Disraeli  Dcrby-Disraeli  ministry  was  followed  by  a  coa- 
lition of  Liberals  and  Peelites,  under  the  Earl  of 
Aberdeen.  Peel  had  died  in  1850,  killed  by  a  fall  from 
his  horse,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  may  be  said  to  have  taken 
his  place.  As  chancellor  of  the  exchequer,,  the  latter 
entered  now  on  a  brilliant  career. 

400.  The  Crimean  War.  More  by  the  arts  of  Louis 
Napoleon  than  by  any  wish  of  its  own,  the  Aberdeen 
government  was  drawn  into  an  alliance  with  that  poor 
imitator  of  his  uncle,  against  Russia,  in  defence  of  the 
Turks.  The  Crimean  War  which  followed  (1854-56) 
had  no  reasonable  cause,  and  nothing  came,  in  the  con- 
duct of  it  or  out  of  the  results,  which  Englishmen  can 


i854-'857] 


GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY. 


609 


look  back  upon  without  regret.      In  battles  on  the  Alma, 
at  Balaclava,  at  Inkerman,  and  in  a  long  siege 

T^   •   •   1  IT  T  1  T  1    Siege  of 

of  Sebastopol,  the  JM^itish  soldiers  did  splendid  Sebas- 
fighting,   as    they   always    do  ;    but   they   were 
wretchedly  commanded,  and  so  incapably  cared  for  that 
thousands  perished   needlessly  from  hardships  and  dis- 
ease. 

Public  anger  over  the  mismanagement  of  the  war  swept 
the  Aberdeen  ministry  from  office,  early  in  1855,  '^"d  gave 
the  lead   in   government  to   Lord    Palmerston,  Paimer- 
who  had  the  bold,  self-confident  energy  needed  ^*°^- 
for  such  affairs.      Things  were  bettered  in  the  Crimea 
by  the  new  administration,  but  no 
glory  was  won.     An  end  to  the  war 
came  in  the  winter  of    1856,  and 
terms  of  peace  were  settled  by  a 
congress  at  Paris,  in  March  of  that 
year. 

401.  Civil  Service  Reform.  In 
the  midst  of  the  Crimean  War,  a 
memorable  and  most  important  re- 
form was  introduced.  By  a  simple 
order  of  the  queen  in  council  (May, 
1855),  a  system  of  competitive  ex- 
aminations was  put  in  force,  for  the 
selection  of  persons  to  be  employed 
in  the  public  service,  and  the  filling 
of  such  employments  from  one  class,  through  social  and 
political  influence,  was  brought  to  an  end. 

402.  Palmerston  and  the  British  War  Spirit. 
Quickly  following  the  close  of  the  Crimean  War  came 
another  inexcusable  war  with  China,  concerning  which 
the  action  of  government  was  condemned  by  a  vote  of 
the    Commons    (March,    1857)  ;  whereupon    the   pugna- 


THE    VICTORIA    CROSS. 

instituted  in  1S56,  as  a  deco< 
ration  awarded  for  notable 
deeds  of  valor. 


6lO  THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA.  [1857 

cioLis  prime  minister,  instead  of  resigning,  dissolved  Par- 
liament and  appealed  in  a  general  election  to  the  peo- 
ple. A  majority  took  the  fighting  side  of  the  question, 
regardless  of  right  or  wrong  ;  Bright,  Cobden,  and  most 
of  the  scrupulous  members  who  had  called  Palmerston 
to  account,  were  defeated,  and  he  was  given  a  stronger 
majority  in  Parliament  than  he  had  before. 

403.  The  Sepoy  Mutiny  in  India.  The  new  Parlia- 
ment had  just  assembled,  when  news  came  from  India 
which  drove  all  thought  of  other  things  from  every  Eng- 
lish mind.  The  Sepoys,  the  native  troops  employed  by 
the  East  Indian  government,  were  rising  in  a  wild  revolt, 
which  threatened  ruin  to  British  rule  in  the  east,  and 
horrors  unspeakable,  of  outrage  and  death,  to  the  thou- 
sands of  English  men,  women,  and  children  in  that  dis- 
tant land.  The  Sepoys  were  300,000  in  number  ;  the 
native  population  behind  them  more  than  two  hundred 
millions  ;  the  British  soldiers  a  mere  handful  of  men. 

Since  the  days  of  Clive  and  Hastings,  the  East  India 
Company,  partly  directed  and  supported  by  the  British 
government,  had  gone  steadily  forward  in  the  subjugation 
of  the  numerous  Indian  states,  sometimes  by  complete 
The  rule  of  conqucst  and  annexation,  sometimes  by  mere 
theEast      reduction  of  native  princes  to  obedience,  until 

India  Com-  ^  ' 

pany.  nearly  the  whole  of  the  great  peninsula  of  Hin- 

dustan was  under  its  rule,  and  held  so,  in  the  main,  by 
an  army  drawn  from  the  subject  races,  with  British  offi- 
cers in  command.  A  passionate  mutiny  in  that  army 
was  an  awful  event  for  England  to  face. 

For  a  generation  past,  there  had  been  few  political 
grievances  in  India  that  were  deeply  felt.  The  people 
had  been  used  to  subjugation,  knowing  no  other  condi- 
tion, and  they  had  had  more  peace  and  comfort  under 
the  rule  of  the  English  during  late  years  than  they  ever 


i857]  GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY.  6ll 

knew  before.     But  the  religious  jealousy  of  both  Hindus 
and  Mohammedans  was  constantly  awake,  and 
it  was  that  which  set  the  mutiny  on  foot.     The  of  the 
Sepoys  were  led  to  believe  that  their  cartridges 
had  been  greased  with  the  fat  of  pigs,  which  both  reli- 
gions abhor  as  unclean,  and  this  seemed  to  them  a  wan- 
ton defilement  that   called  for  revenge.      Once  started, 
the  revolt  was  helped  on  by  many  feelings  ;  but  it  failed 
entirely  to  become  a  rebellion  of  the  people   at   large. 
The  apathetic  masses  looked  on  with  almost  indifferent 
eyes. 

Some  of  the  officers  first  surprised  by  the  outbreak 
dealt  weakly  with  it,  and  the  mutineers  were  allowed  to 
take  Delhi  and  Cawnpore,  with  horrible  massacres  there 
and  elsewhere  ;  but  instantly,  almost,  there  sprang  to  the 
front  of  the  English  such  a  body  of  heroic  men  as  have 
rarely  been  found  ready  to  meet  that  desperate  kind  of 
need.  John  Lawrence,  Henry  Lawrence,  John  The  British 
Nicholson,  Henry  Havelock,  Colin  Campbell,  i^^^^^rs. 
Lord  Canning  (the  governor-general),  are  names  that 
shine  lustrously  among  the  hundreds  of  those  who 
showed  then  the  stuff  of  character  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  which  gives  it  rule.  Within  little  more  than  four 
months  from  the  outbreak  of  the  mutiny  (May,  1857),  its 
spirit  was  broken,  by  the  storming  of  Delhi  and  the 
relief  of  Lucknow,  the  two  centres  of  its  strength,  and 
early  summer  in  the  following  year  found  India  restored 
to  order  and  peace.  Its  government  was  then  taken 
entirely  from  the  East  India  Company  and  vested  in  the 
Eno-lish  crown. 

404.  Changes  of  Ministry.  Lord  Palmerston  was  out 
of  office  before  the  ending  of  the  Sepoy  revolt.  There 
had  been  an  attempt  to  assassinate  the  French  emperor, 
followed  by  angry  complaints  that  England  was  a  breed- 


6l2  THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA.  [1858-1861 

ing-place  for  such  plots.  Palmerston  thought  the  com- 
plamts  were  justified,  and  proposed  an  amendment  of  the 
conspiracy  laws  ;  but  Parliament  voted  him  down,  and  he 

resigned  (February,  1858).  Another  brief  term 
Disraeli       of  Dcrby-Disraeli  government  then  followed,  in 

which  Disraeli  made  a  bid  for  popular  support 
by  proposing  a  new  scheme  of  parliamentary  reform  ; 
but  his  bill  was  pronounced  fanciful  by  the  friends  of 
Palmer-  reform,  and  met  with  defeat.  Palmerston  be- 
ston  again.  ca.me  premier  again,  with  Russell  for  foreign 
secretary,  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  now  fully  united  with  the 
Liberal  party,  for  minister  of  finance. 

The  early  work  of  this  ministry  was  most  notable  in 
the  department  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  handled  the 
Gladstone's  sourccs  of  public  revciiue  with  remarkably  fine 
"budget."  j-es^its  His  "budget"  (as  the  financial  esti- 
mates of  the  government  are  called  in  England)  of  1 860 
swept  from  the  British  tariff  the  last  protective  duties 

on  manufactured  sfoods.  Measures  of  reform 
Post-oflace  .      *^      ,      ,   ..    , 

savings        or  social  experiment  had  little  encouragement 

from  Palmerston  ;  but  one,  which  created  post- 
office  savings  banks,  for  small  deposits,  was  adopted  in 
1 86 1,  with  orreat  success.     The  death  of  Prince 

Death  of  . 

Prince         Albert,  in  that  year,  was  a  cruel  affliction  to 

Albert. 

the  queen,  and  took  from  England  an  influence 
that  had  always  been  wisely  and  quietly  used  for  its 
good,  in  many  refining  ways. 

405.  The  Civil  War  in  America.  The  outbreak,  in 
1 86 1,  of  civil  war  in  America,  caused  by  the  attempted 
secession  of  slaveholding  States,  brought  to  light  a  very 
sharp  opposition  of  feeling  in  different  classes  of  the 
Enghsh  people  towards  the  republic  of  the  United 
States.  The  mass  of  the  common  people  showed  warm 
friendliness  to  the  cause  of  the  Union,  but  the  wealthier 


I86I-IS65] 


GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY. 


613 


i^lAW 


■|»p?45^iil 


HOUSES    OF    PARLIAMENT,    OPENED    IN    1852. 


classes  were  hostile  to  it,  with  few  exceptions  and  little 
disguise.  The  disposition  of  the  latter  was  represented 
in  the  government,  and  would  probably  have  carried 
England  into  some  course  openly  helpful  to  the  seceding 
States,  if  it  had  not  been  held  in  check  by  that  powerful 
under-force  in  public  ojoinion  which  English  statesmen 
had  learned  not  to  defy. 

Confederate  privateers  (notably  the  Alabama),  built, 
equipped,  and  manned  in  British  ports,  escaped  deten- 
tion, by  what  seemed  to  the  American  government  and 
its  friends  to  be  wilful  neglect  or  connivance  on  the  part 
of  English  officials,  and  almost  swept  American  com- 
merce from  the  sea.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  T^e  cotton 
to  half  appease  the  bitter  feeling  which  this  f^"^^^®- 
caused  in  America,  was  the  pathetic  fact  that  thousands 
of  British  workingmen,  whose  spindles  and  looms  were 
idle  for  the  want  of  American  cotton,  and  who  suffered 
years  of  hardship  not  easily  described,  would  join  in  no 


6l4  THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA.  [1S61-1866 

cry  against  the  struggle  for  the  Ufe  of  the  great  repubHc, 
which  had  brought  that  calamity  to  their  doors.  Nor 
was  friendship  to  the  American  Union  confined  to  the 
working  class.  It  enlisted  some  of  the  best  and  highest 
in  English  society,  and  it  spoke  in  Parliament  with  the 
most  eloquent  of  all  English  tongues  —  the  tongue  of 
John  Bright. 

The  responsibility  of  the  British  government  for  the 
destructive  work    of   the    Alabama   and   other 
Alabama      Confederate  privateers  became  a  serious  ques- 
tion between  England  and  the  United  States, 
remaining  in  dispute  for  several  years  after  the  close  of 
the  civil  war. 

406.  Russell's  Second  Ministry.  Lord  Palmerston 
died  in  the  autumn  of  1865,  and  Lord  John  Russell  took 
his  place.  A  trifling  insurrection  among  the  blacks  in 
Jamaica,  suppressed  with  brutality  by  the  governor  of 
the  island,  named  Eyre,  and  the  outbreak  of  Fenianism 
in  Ireland  and  America,  were  the  exciting  events  of 
that  year  and  the  next.  Russell  wished  to  take  some 
step  further  in  popularizing  the  representation  in  Parlia- 
ment, by  a  new  reform  bill,  but  met  opposition  in  his 
ow^n  party,  and  resigned  (June,  1866). 

407.  The  Fenian  Movement.  The  leaders  of  disaffec- 
tion in  Ireland  had  now  organized  a  secret  society,  called 
the  Fenian  Brotherhood,  which  plotted  armed  rebellion, 
and  w^hich  embraced  a  multitude  of  the  Irish  in  the 
United  States.  A  prodigious  movement  of  emigration 
since  the  famine  had  carried  a  vast  number  from  Ireland  ■ 
to  America.  The  emigrants  had  fairly  prospered ;  many 
had  served  in  the  American  civil  war  ;  they  were  eager 
to  furnish  money,  men,  and  captains  to  the  undertaking 
which  the  P'enian  Brotherhood  proposed.  But  weak  or 
dishonest  leadership  made  the  whole  movement  futile  in 


i866-i868]  GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY.  615 

the  last  degree.  Some  reckless  raids  into  Canada  from 
the  American  border  were  made  without  any  rational 
object  or  plan,  and  a  rising  attempted  in  Ireland,  in  1867, 
was  easily  put  down. 

408.  The  Second  Reforra  of  Parliament.  Disraeli 
and  Derby,  who  took  the  government  in  hand  when  Rus- 
sell resigned,  brought  forward  proposals  for  an  increase 
of  the  voters  in  parliamentary  elections  which,  after  much 
amendment,  were  embodied  in  a  reform  bill  and  passed 
(August,  1867).  This  second  reform  went  farther  to- 
wards a  democratic  constitution  of  Parliament  than  even 
the  broader  Liberals  had  dared  to  suggest.  In  the 
boroughs,  it  made  voters  of  all  male  householders  who 
paid  rates  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  and  of  all  lodgers 
who  paid  rent  to  the  amount  of  ten  pounds  (^50)  a  year. 
In  county  elections,  every  tenant  who  paid  twelve  pounds 
in  annual  rent,  and  every  owner  of  property  valued  at 
five  pounds  per  year,  was  given  a  vote. 

409.  The  Dominion  of  Canada.  It  was  the  good 
fortune  of  the  Derby-Disraeli  government  to  bring  a 
long-considered  project  of  great  importance  to  comple- 
tion, by  the  passing  of  an  act  (March,  1867)  which  con- 
federated the  British  provinces  of  North  America  (with 
the  exception  of  Newfoundland)  in  the  union  that  bears 
the  name  of  the  Dominion  of  Canada,  with  the  constitu- 
tion of  a  substantially  independent  state. 

410.  A  New  Period  of  Reforms.  The  Liberals  in 
general  had  been  brought  by  this  time  to  see  that  radical 
measures  must  be  taken  to  remove  the  grievances  of  the 
Catholic  Irish  people,  beginning  with  an  act  to  release 
them  from  the  support  of  that  established  Protestant 
church  which  had  tithed  and  taxed  them  for  three  hun- 
dred years.  Resolutions  to  this  effect  were  carried  by 
Mr.  Gladstone  (April,  1S68),  in  opposition  to  the  minis- 


6l6  THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA.  [1868-1874 

ters,  who  then  dissolved  ParHament  and  were  overwhelm- 
ino^lv  beaten  at  the  polls.     This  made  Mr.  Glad- 

Gladstone's  "^  .  .     .  ^      ^       .  ,  _ 

first  minis-  stone  pmiie  minister,  and,  during  the  next  five 
years,  an  extraordinary  number  of  important 
measures  was  carried  into  effect.  The  Irish  church  was 
disestablished,  and  an  attempt  was  made  so  to  amend 
the  Irish  land  laws  that  tenants  might  no  longer  be 
"evicted"  (expelled)  from  their  little  holdings  at  the  will 
of  the  landlord,  and  robbed  of  all  the  improvements  they 
had  made.  A  national  system  of  common  schools 
(partly  "church  schools,"  however,  controlled  by  the 
established  church)  was  founded ;  dissenters,  for  the 
first  time,  were  admitted  to  the  great  universities,  by 
abolition  of  the  test  oath  ;  the  sale  of  commissions  in 
the  army  was  abolished  ;  use  of  the  ballot  in  voting  was 
introduced.  Finally,  questions  in  dispute  with  the 
United  States  were  arranged  by  the  treaty  of  Washing- 
ton (May,  1871),  and  the  so-called  "Alabama  Claims" 
were  settled  in  the  following  year  by  a  tribunal  of  arbi- 
tration at  Geneva,  which  awarded  $15,000,000  in  dam- 
ages to  the  United  States. 

Every  one  of  these  measures  made  enemies,  and  the 
government  was  gradually  weakened,  until  Mr.  Glad- 
Returnof  stouc,  in  1874,  thought  it  best  to  dissolve  Par- 
Disraeh.  Hament  and  have  the  national  will  expressed. 
The  election  went  against  him,  and  Mr.  Disraeli  was 
again  called  to  the  head  of  affairs. 

411.  The  *•  Imperial  Policy  *'  of  Disraeli.  Not  long 
after  becoming  prime  minister  Mr.  Disraeli  was  raised  to 
the  peerage,  as  Earl  of  Beaconsfield,  and  it  is  by  that 
title  that  he  is  now  better  known.  The  six  years  of  his 
ministry  were  a  period  of  drum-and-trumpet  displays,  in 
what  was  called  by  his  admirers  an  "  imperial  joolicy," 
but  which  got  the  now  familiar    name  of   "jingoism," 


1874-1880] 


GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY. 


617 


from  the  refrain  of  a  song  that  seemed  to  exactly  ex- 
press the  spirit  in  which  the  government  was  being  car- 
ried on:    "We  don't  want  to  fight,"  said  the  ..jingo- 
popular  ditty,  "but,  by  Jingo,  if  we  do,  We've  ^^"^•" 
got  the  ships,  we  've  got  the  men,  and  we  've  got  the 
money,  too."     As  the  result  of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  "im- 
perial   policy,"    England   was  very    nearly    carried    into 
another  war  with  Russia, 
to  defend  the  abominable 
government  of  the  Turks  ; 
a  second  meddlesome  and 
disastrous  invasion  of  Af- 
ghanistan was  undertaken ; 
a    bloody    and    inglorious 
war  with  the  Dutch  or  Boer 
republic  of  the  Transvaal, 
in    South    Africa,    and    a 
worse  war  with  the  neigh- 
boring   Zulus,    were    pro- 
voked ;   and  England  was 
involved    in    undertakings 
in  Egypt  that  led  on  to  a 
succession  of  costly  wars. 
The  "imperial  policy  "  was  crowned,  so  to  speak,  in  1877, 
when  the  queen,  by  formal  proclamation,   assumed  the 
title  of  Empress  of  India.    When  the  time  came,  Gladstone 
in   1880,  for  the  election  of  a  new  Parliament,  ^^^^^• 
the  country  was  found  to  have  tired  of  "jingoism,"  and 
a  great  Liberal  majority  threw  Beaconsfield  out,  to  bring 
Gladstone  in. 

412.  The  Land  League  and  the  Home  Rule  Party  in 
Ireland.  Since  the  Liberals  went  out  of  office,  in  1874, 
the  state  of  Ireland  had  grown  worse.  Mr.  Gladstone's 
land  bill  had  not  worked  with  success.     Means  of  evasion 


BENJAMIN    DISRAELI,    EARL    OF    BEA- 
CONSFIELD. 


6i8 


THE    DEMOCRATIC   ERA. 


[1880-1884 


had  been  found,  and  evictions  had  increased.  Hatred  of 
landlords  had  risen  to  a  passionate  heat.  A  widespread 
"Land  League"  had  been  organized  throughout  the 
country,  for  warfare  against  the  whole  system  under 
which  most  of  the  soil  of  Ireland  is  held  ;  while  a  com- 
pact party,  demanding  "  Home  Rule  "  for  Ireland,  by  a 
separate  legislature,  had  risen  among  the  Irish 
and  the  members  of  Parliament,  under  a  resolute  leader, 
govern-  Mr.  Charlcs  Stuart  Parnell.  Mr.  Gladstone 
^^^^'  formed   a   ministry   that  agreed   in  wishing  to 

deal  rightly  with  Ireland,  but  its  failure  to  satisfy  the 
Irish  Home  Rule  Party  was  complete.  By  causes  not 
readily  explained,  a  state  of  fierce  hostility  between  the 
government  and  the  party  of  Mr.  Parnell  was  brought 
about,  which  stopped  all  good  work  in  Parliament,  pro- 
voked violent  acts  of  au- 
thority, and  excited  mur 
derous  crimes. 

413.  The  Third  Re- 
form of  Parliaraent. 
After  two  years  of  this 
lamentable  conflict  of  the 
government  with  the 
Irish  Home  Rulers,  a 
truce  was  arranged  which 
allowed  some  measures 
of  importance  to  be  taken 
up.  Foremost  among 
them  was  a  bill  to  enlarge 
and  improve  still  further, 
and  very  greatly,  the  representation  of  the  people  in  Par- 
liament. This  passed  the  Commons  in  July,  1884.  It 
was  rejected  by  the  Lords  ;  but  their  action  stirred  the 
country  to  a  wrath  which  had,  once  more,  its  warning 


WILLIAM    EWART    GLADSTONE. 


1884-1886]  GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY.  619 

effect.  Their  })rudent  lordships  passed  the  bill  when  it 
came  to  them,  in  November,  a  second  time,  l^y  this 
third  of  the  great  parliamentary  reforms,  about  two  mil- 
lions of  voters  were  added  to  the  electors  of  Parliament, 
making  the  suffrage  very  nearly  universal,  and  the  Eng- 
lish constitution  scarcely  less  democratic  than  that  of  the 
United  States.  Another  act,  which  followed  immedi- 
ately, made  a  new  distribution  of  parliamentary  seats,  by 
districts  nearly  equal  in  population  and  fairly  apportioned 
to  country  and  town. 

414.  Mr.  Gladstone's  First  Irish  Home  Rule  Bill. 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  inherited  troubles  from  his  predeces- 
sor which  drove  him  from  office  for  a  few  months  in  1885. 
The  failure  of  his  government  to  rescue  General  General 
Gordon  from  the  Mahdi,  at  Khartoum,  led  to  a  ^o^^on. 
vote  against  it  and  to  its  resignation,  in  June.  The  Con- 
servatives formed  a  ministry  then,  under  the  Marquis  of 
Salisbury^  (Lord  Reaconsfield  had  died  in  1881), 

but  failed  to  win  the  majority  of  votes  at  a  new  Salisbury 
election  of  Parliament,  and  retired  early  in  the 
next  year.     Mr.  Gladstone  returned  to  office  with  a  de- 
termination to  yield  to  the  Irish  demand  for  home  rule ; 
but  one  lars^e  section  of  the  Liberal  party  re- 

f  .  "^      .       Third 

fused  in  this  matter  to  follow  his  lead.     A  bill  Gladstone 
which  he  introduced  (April,  1886),  giving  Ire- 
land a  separate  legislature,  was  defeated  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and,  when  he  dissolved  Parliament  for  a  new 
election,  the  verdict  of  the  House  was  sustained  by  the 
popular  vote. 

415.  Conservatives  and  Liberal  Unionists  in  Power. 
Mr.   Gladstone's  place  was  again  taken  by  Lord  Salis- 

^  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  third  Marquis  of  Salisbury,  is  directly 
descended  from  the  famous  minister  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  William 
Cecil,  Lord  Burleigh,  whose  son,  Rol)ert  Cecil,  was  created  Earl  of 
Salisbury  by  James  I. 


620  THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA.  [1886-1893 

bury,  who  headed  a  coalition  ministry,  in  which  the  Con- 
servatives were  joined  by  seceding  Liberals,  or 
Salisbury  Liberal  Unionists,  as  they  now  chose  to  be 
called.  This  ministry  conducted  the  govern- 
ment during  six  years,  in  which  Ireland  continued  to 
be  disturbed,  but  the  empire  was  generally  at  peace. 
Some  diffxcult  disputes  with  the  United  States  arose, 
over  fishery  and  seal-killing  rights,  which  were  settled 
in  the  latter  case  by  arbitration  ;  but  a  treaty  for  the 
settlement  of  the  former  was  rejected  by  the  American 
Partition  Senate.  During  this  period,  vast  regions  of 
of  Africa.  Central  Africa  were  partitioned,  by  occupation 
and  agreement,  between  Great  Britain,  Germany,  France, 
Portugal,  and  the  Congo  Free  State  (founded  by  the 
King  of  Belgium),  Great  Britain  securing  the  larger 
share.  In  affairs  at  home,  the  most  important  measure 
County  ^v3.s  ouc  Creating  county  councils,  which  simpli- 
and^f^ee  ^^^  ^ud  consolidated  local  government  in  Eng- 
schoois.  jg^j^^i  ^^^^  made  it  democratic  in  a  marked  de- 
gree. By  another  notable  act,  an  increased  public  grant 
to  the  elementary  schools  abolished  fees  from  pupils  in 
most  of  them,  and  made  them  entirely  free. 

416.  Mr.  Gladstone's  Last  Effort  for  Ireland.     The 
term  of  Parliament  expired  in  1892,  and  Mr.  Gladstone 

was  then  recalled  to  power  by  a  majority  elected 
Fourth  ^  ^  •'   .    ■: 

Gladstone     to  the  ucw  Housc  of  Commons,  distinctly  in 
favor  of  the  concession  to  Ireland  of  home  rule. 
It  was  a  majority  obtained  in  Ireland  and  Scotland,  how- 
ever, whereby  an  opposing  majority  in  England  was  over- 
come.    With   this   support,   Mr.   Gladstone,  in 

The  second  ^  ^ 

Home  Rule   h^ebruary,  1893,  brought  forward  a  second  Home 
Rule  bill,  much  altered  from  the  first,  and  car- 
ried it  through  the  House,  after  months  of  debate  ;  but 
when  it  was  overwhelmingly  defeated  by  the  Lords  he 


1894-1898]  GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY.  62 1 

put  it  aside,  and  turned  for  a  few  months  to  other  work, 
which  finished  his  pohtical  career.  In  April,  ICS94,  he 
resigned,  having  passed  the  age  of  eiglity-four. 

On  the  retirement  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  Karl  of  Rose- 
bery  was  advanced  to  his  place,  at  the  head  of  the  Lib- 
eral cabinet,  which  retained  office  until  the  following 
year.  It  carried  through  an  important  bill,  making  a 
further  improvement  in  local  government,  by  Parish 
creating  parish  councils,  elected  by  universal  councils, 
suffrage,  women  voting,  as  well  as  men.  The  Rosebery 
ministry  lost  the  support  of  the  Irish  party  and  resigned 
in  June,  1895. 

417.  The  Third  Salisbury  Ministry.  Again  in  coali- 
tion with  Liberal  Unionists,  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain  at 
their  head.  Lord  Salisbury  became  prime  minister,  with 
an  immense  majority  given  to  him,  on  the  election  of  a 
new  House.  At  the  time  when  this  narrative  closes 
(June,  1900),  his  ministry  is  still  in  power.  The  first 
four  years  of  his  government  were  mostly  years  of  rest 
for  England  in  political  affairs,  both  at  home  Quiet  in 
and  abroad.  So  quiet  a  state  in  Ireland  was  ^^^^^nd. 
never  before  known.  A  new  land  bill,  passed  in  1S96, 
and  a  "local  self-government  bill,"  passed  in  1898,  which 
creates  county  and  district  councils  in  Ireland,  like  those 
given  to  England  in  1888,  appear  to  have  greatly  les- 
sened the  discontent. 

In   1895,  the  friendly  relations  between  England  and 
the  United  States  were  gravely  disturbed  by  a  question 
relating  to  Venezuela  boundaries,  but   it   was 
happily  smoothed  away,  by  an  acceptance  of  Venezuela 
arbitration  on  the  part  of  the  British  govern- 
ment.    Three  years  later,  on  the  occasion  of  war  between 
the  United  States  and  Spain,  there  were  demonstrations 
of  good  feeling  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain  toward  the 


622  THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA.  [1834-1900 

former,  which  powerfully  strengthened  the  sense  of  kin- 
ship that  ought  to  bind  the  two  nations  together. 

418.  The    "Diamond  Jubilee"   of    Queen  Victoria. 

In  1897,  the  sixtieth  anniversary,  called  the  "Diamond 
Jubilee,"  of  Queen  Victoria,  was  celebrated  with  great 
pomp,  and  with  feelings  deeply  moved,  by  her  subjects 
in  every  part  of  the  great  empire,  far  and  near.  No 
other  reign  in  English  history  has  been  so  long;  no 
other  has  covered  changes  so  great— an  advance  so 
wonderful  in  the  conditions  of  human  life,  material  and 
moral,    political    and    social,    for    England   and   for   the 

world. 

419.  The  British-Boer  War.  The  most  serious  of 
recent  British  wars  has  been  in  progress  since  October, 
1899,  but  seems,  at  this  writing,  to  be  near  its  end.  The 
origin  of  the  war  may  be  traced  as  far  back  as  to  the  con- 
quest of  Cape  Colony,  in  South  Africa,  from  the  Dutch 
(see  section  369).  The  Dutch  colonists  were  never  re- 
conciled to  English  rule.  In  1834,  being  especially  dis- 
satisfied with  the  terms  on  which  slavery  in  British 
colonies  was  abolished,  a  large  body  of  them  migrated, 
The  great  ^^  "trekked,"  as  their  own  language  expressed 
*^®^-  it,  to  a  region  in  the  South  African  wilderness, 
outside,  as  they  supposed,  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  British 
Parliament  and  Crown.  There,  in  Natal,  —  so  named  by 
Vasco  da  Gama,  —  they  undertook  to  set  up  a  republican 
government  of  their  own.  But  England  claimed  sover- 
eignty over  them  and  their  land,  and,  in  1843,  a  large 
part  of  the  colony  "  trekked  "  again,  to  the  district  since 
known  as  the  Orange  Free  State.  There,  too,  British 
sovereignty  was  asserted,  and,  once  more,  in  1848,  the 
more  obstinate  of  these  Dutch  farmers  (called  "  boers  " 
in  their  own  language)  moved  farther  into  the  wilderness, 
across  the  Vaal  river,  and  took  possession  of  the  territory 


624  THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA.  [1854-1900 

on  which  the  Transvaal  or  South  African  repubhc  has 
grown  up.  The  British  government  not  only  did  not 
pursue  the  seceding  Boers  to  this  last  retreat,  but,  in 
1854,  it  conceded  independence  to  those  who  had  re- 
mained in  the  Orange  Free  State. 

From  that  time  until  1877  there  was  peace,  if  not 
friendliness,  in  South  Africa,  between  English  and  Dutch. 
But  the  Transvaal  Boers  were  fighting  fierce  wars  with 
the  natives,  and  some  of  them,  who  seemed  to  have 
grown  fearful  of  the  result,  looked  towards  England  at 
last  for  helj).  Their  talk  encouraged  the  Disraeli  govern- 
ment of  those  days  (the  "Jingo  "  days  described  in  sec- 
tion 411)  to  plant  the  British  flag  in  the  Transvaal  and 
declare  that  country  to  be  part  of  the  dominions  of  •  the 
queen.  After  remonstrating  for  three  years,  the  Boers 
Majuba  ^^^^  arms  (1880),  and  showed  great  fighting 
^^^^-  qualities  in  several  battles,  especially  at  Majuba 

Hill  (February  27,  1881),  where  the  British  experienced 
a  terrible  defeat.  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  had  then  come 
into  power,  believed  the  Boers  to  have  been  wronged, 
and  he  made  peace  with  them  on  terms  which  reestab- 
lished their  republic,  with  independence  except  in  foreign 
affairs. 

This  settlement  was  disappointing  to  many  on  the  Eng- 
lish side,  who  were  hoping  for  a  strong  confederation 
of  South  African  colonies,  to  consolidate  the  British 
empire  in  that  part  of  the  world.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  Dutch  of  South  Africa,  who  outnumbered  the  Eng- 
lish colonists,  were  aspiring  to  become  the  dominant 
race  ;  and  thus  there  were  seeds  of  strife  in  the  situation 
which  could  not  easily  be  kept  from  some  kind  of  growth. 
Their  growth  was  hastened  by  discoveries  of  a  rich  gold 
field  in  the  Transvaal,  and  by  a  general  excitement  of 
desire  in   Europe   for    colonial   possessions   in   the   wild 


iSSi-igoo] 


GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY. 


625 


African  domain.  Foreign  miners  and  traders  (called 
"  Uitlanders  "  or  "  Outlanders  "  by  the  Dutch),  swarming 
into  the  gold  field  of  Witwatersrand,  or  "  the  Rand,"  as 
the  district  was  commonly  known,  soon  outnumbered 
the  Boer  population  of  the  Transvaal,  and  built  up,  at 
Johannesburg,  the  largest  of  South  African  cities.  The 
Boers   regarded    the    new-comers   with    jealous   distrust. 


BRITISH-BOER    WAR,    SOUTH    AFRICA,    1899-1900. 

taxed  them  heavily,  and  refused  to  give  them  political 
ri2:hts.  As  the  Outlanders  increased  in  number,  their 
complaint  of  oppressive  government  and  their  demands 
for  citizenship  and  equal  rights  in  the  republic  became 

loud. 

At  the  same  time,  there  was  rising,  by  the  side  of  the 
Boer  republic,  a  new  power  in  South  Africa,  which  seems 
to  have  encouraofed  the  Outlander  demands.     This  was 


626 


THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA. 


[1899- 1 900 


'^ 


CHARLES   DICKENS. 


the  British  South  Africa 
Company,  organized  by 
a  man  of  bold  ambi- 
tions, Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes. 
Under  a  royal  charter 
granted  in  1889,  the 
company  had  acquired 
control  of  a  vast  region, 
now  called  Rhodesia, 
which  stretches  north- 
ward from  the  Trans- 
vaal. Either  some  of 
the  chiefs  or  some  of 
the  servants  of  this  im- 
perial corporation  (the 
real  facts  have  not  yet  been  ascertained)  conspired,  in 
1895,  with  certain  of  the  Outlanders  at  Johannesburg,  to 
assist  the  latter  in  a  rising  against  the  Boer  TheJame- 
government.  In  December  of  that  year  the  at-  son  raid, 
tempt  was  made  and  ignominiously  failed.  Five  hundred 
armed  men  from  Rhodesia, 
commanded  by  the  com- 
pany's administrator,  Dr. 
Jameson,  invaded  the 
Transvaal,  but  were  speed- 
ily surrounded,  captured, 
and  disarmed.  The  British 
government  claimed  them, 
and  punished  them  for  the 
lawless  deed  ;  but  naturally 
a  new  bitterness  entered 
the  feelinc:  of  the  Boers. 

They  hastened  prepara- 
tions  for  war  which   they 


LORi:)    TENNYSON. 


1899-19°°] 


GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY. 


627 


had  begun  long  before.  The  large  revenue  they  were 
deriving  from  the  taxation  of  the  mines  and  miners  was 
mostly  expended  upon  arms,  equipments,  and  military 
works.  They  made  no  concession  to  the  Outlanders, 
while  the  latter  were  rousing  England  to  indignation  by 
their  complaints.  The  British  government  at  length,  in 
October,  1899,  attempted  pressure  upon  that  of  the 
Transvaal,  which  the  latter  met  by  a  sudden  declaration 
of  war.  It  was  joined  in  the  declaration  by  the  Orange 
Free  State. 

At  the  beginning  of  hostilities,  the  Boers,  being  fully 
prepared,  as  the  British 
were  not,  had  remarkable 
success ;  but  their  num- 
bers were  small,  while  the 
power  arrayed  against 
them  was  overwhelmingly 
great.  Assisted  from 
Canada,  Australia,  and 
New  Zealand  (her  colo- 
nies volunteerinof  to  take 
part  in  the  defence  of  the 
empire),  England  has  sent 
to  South  Africa  a  larger 
army  than   she  ever  put 

into  the  field  in  any  former  war.  The  Boers,  a  mere 
handful  against  it,  have  given  way,  until  their  capital  is 
in  the  hands  of  their  enemies  ;  but  they  have  made  a 
fight  which  all  the  world  must  admire,  and  none  perhaps 
more  than  the  English  themselves. 

420.  Literature  and  Science  in  the  Victorian  Age. 
It  is  a  fact  that  seems  strange,  but  which  probably  has 
no  especial  meaning,  that  the  three  important  reigns 
of    English    queens  —  those    of    Elizabeth,    Anne,    and 


LORD    MACAULAY. 


628  THE    DEMOCRATIC    ERA.  [1837-1900 

Victoria  —  have  been  periods  of  remarkable  brilliancy  in 
literature.  Shakespeare  gives  a  glory  beyond  compare 
to  the  Elizabethan  Age,  but  otherwise  the  Victorian  is 
hardly  outshone  by  it,  even  in  the  domain  of  the  poets, 
where  Tennyson,  Browning,  Arnold,  Swinburne,  Morris 
illustrate  the  genius  of  their  generation ;  while  nothing 
nearly  equal  to  the  varied  richness  of  the  Victorian  prose 
is  found  in  any  former  time.  The  English  novel,  as  per- 
fected by  Thackeray,  Dickens,  George  Eliot,  Charlotte 
Bronte,  Mrs.  Gaskell,  Reade,  Kingsley,  and  their  succes- 
sors, is  a  work  of  imaginative  literary  art  that  can  claim 
equality  at  least  with  the  Elizabethan  drama,  when  Shake- 
speare's great  plays  are  taken  out.  In  discursive  and 
descriptive  English  prose,  new  powers  of  expression  have 
been  found  by  Ruskin  and  Carlyle,  new  beauties  by 
Stevenson,  new  effects  by  Macaulay,  and  a  newly  lighted 
clearness  in  it  for  deep  matters  of  thought  and  know- 
ledge by  Huxley  and  his  fellow  teachers  in  the  scientific 
realm. 

In  that  wonderful  realm  comparison  is  stopped.  The 
age  of  Darwin,  and  of  the  new  turn  and  impulse  that 
Darwin  gave  to  all  thought ;  the  age  of  the  discovery  of 
the  germ-origin  of  most  diseases  ;  the  age  of  electricity, 
superseding  steam  ;  of  steel,  superseding  iron ;  of  the 
railway,  the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  the  phonograph ; 
of  photography,  and  of  a  thousand  chemical  arts  ;  the 
age  of  marvels  unnumbered  in  discovery,  and  of  greater 
marvels  in  the  spreading  of  the  knowledge  they  bring 
through  all  ranks  of  the  people,  —  this  Victorian  age  of 
Science  and  of  democracy  in  knowledge  has  a  grandeur 
that  surpasses  all. 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.      629 
TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    RESEARCH    QUESTIONS. 

399.  The  Russell  Ministry. 
Topics. 

1.  Peel,  Gladstone,  and  Disraeli. 

2.  Reforms  in  Ireland  and  Chartist  agitation. 

3.  Assistance  to  education  and  work  of  Prince  Albert. 

4.  France  and  Lord  Palmerston. 

5.  Changes  in  the  ministry. 
Reference.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  932-938. 

400.  The  Crimean  War. 
Topics. 

1.  Reasoi  for  war. 

2.  Balaclava,  Inkerman,  and  the  siege  of  Sebastopol. 

3.  Fall  of  ministry  and  end  of  the  war. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  943-948  ;  Bright,  iv.  229-285  ;  Guest, 
563;  Traill,  vi.  125,  254-256,  262-269;  McCarthy,  i.  chs.  xxv- 
xxviii. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  were  the  underlying  reasons 
for  the  Crimean  War?  (Guest,  562,  563.)  (2.)  What  famous 
poem  did  Tennyson  write  on  one  of  its  incidents.''  (3.)  This  war 
shows  the  beginning  of  what  service  for  the  army  ?  (4.)  Of 
what  modern  method  of  obtaining  the  news?  (5.)  What  portion 
of  the  Turkish  province  is  it  Russia's  ambition  to  seize?  (6.) 
Does  England  wish  to  prevent  the  breaking  up  of  the  Turkish 
empire?     (Bright,  iii.  1465.) 

401.  Civil  Service  Reform. 
Topic. 

I.  Competitive  examinations. 
References.  —  Bright,  iv.  286,  339,  501  ;  Eaton,  Civil  Service  in 

Great  Britain. 

402.  Palmerston  and  the  British  War  Spirit. 
Topic. 

I.  War  with  China  and  Palmerston's  appeal  to  the  country. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iv.  274,  289-291. 

403.  The  Sepoy  Mutiny  in  India. 
Topics. 

1.  Conditions  of  English  control  in  India. 

2.  Causes  of  the  mutiny  and  attitude  of  the  Indian  people. 


630  GROWTH    OF    DEMOCRACY. 

3.  First  successes  of  the  Sepoys. 

4.  English  heroism  and  end  of  the  mutiny. 
References.—  Gardiner,  iii.  952-955  ;  Bright,  iv.  292-328  ;  Traill, 

vi.  258,  259,  269,  270;   McCarthy,  ii.  chs.  xxxii-xxxv. 

404.  Change  of  Ministry. 
Topics. 

1.  Palmerston  defeated. 

2.  Derby-Disraeli  ministry  and  Palmerston  again. 

3.  Gladstone's  budget. 

4.  Post-office  savings  banks. 

5.  Death  of  Prince  Albert. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  955,  956  ;  Bright,  iv.  385-394,  408. 

405.  The  Civil  War  in  America, 
Topics. 

1.  Opposing  English  opinions  as  to  the  war. 

2.  Confederate  privateers. 

3.  The  steadfastness  of  the  friends  of  the  American  Union. 

4.  America's  claims  against  England. 

References.  —  Bright,  iv.  372-385.  The  Alabama  :  Gardiner,  iii. 
958,  965,  966;  Bright,  iv.  377,  378,  489-491  ;  McCarthy,  ii.  206- 
228,  481,  51  r-520.     Cotton  famine  :  Traill,  vi.  432. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  How  does  cotton  rank  in  importance 
among  manufacturing  fibres  ?  (2.)  What  country  furnishes  the 
greatest  supply  of  raw  cotton  ?  (3.)  What  other  countries  produce 
it  in  marketable  quantities  ? 

406.  Russell's  Second  Ministry. 
Topics. 

1.  Insurrections. 

2.  New  reform  bill  and  resignation. 
Reference.  —  P^right,  iv.  413-415,  419,  420. 

407.  The  Fenian  Movement. 
Topics. 

1.  Plot  of  Irishmen. 

2.  Help  from  America. 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iv.  415-419. 

408.  The  Second  Reform  of  Parliament. 
Topic. 

I.  Extension  of  the  franchise. 


TOPICS,    REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.     631 

ReferenceSo —  Bright,  iv.  421-429  ;  Gardiner,  iii.  961  ;  Montague, 
208-210;  H.Taylor,  ii.  533-536;  Taswell-Langmead,  729-731; 
May,  ii.  584-590;  McCarthy,  ii.  ch.  hi. 

409.  The  Dominion  of  Canada. 
Topic. 

I.  Act  of  confederationo 
Reference.  —  Bright,  iv.  433-435. 

410.  A  New  Period  of  Reform. 
Topics. 

1.  Gladstone  elected  to  redress  Irish  grievances. 

2.  Reform  accomplished  by  Gladstone's  ministry.  • 

3.  Defeat  of  Gladstone. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  962-966.  Education  Act  of  1870: 
Bright,  iv.  462-466 ;  H.  Taylor,  ii.  580-582;  May,  ii.  568-571, 
600,  601  ;  McCarthy,  ii.  481-486.  Land  Act  of  1870:  Bright,  iv. 
454-461;  McCarthy,  ii.  471-479. 

411.  The  "  Imperial  Policy  "  of  Disraeli. 
Topics. 

1.  Character  of  this  policy  and  the  result  of  it. 

2.  Defeat  of  Disraeli. 

References.  —  McCarthy,  England  under  (iladstone,  ch.  i. ; 
Bright,  iv.  507-567. 

412.  The  Land  League  and  the  Home  Rule  Party  in 

Ireland. 
Topics. 

1.  Condition  of  Irelannd. 

2.  Opposition  of  Parnell  to  the  Liberals. 

References.  —  Gardiner,  iii.  970-972:  McCarthy,  England  un- 
der Gladstone,  ch.  vi. 

413.  The  Third  Reform  of  Parliament. 
Topic. 

I.   Increased  representation  of  the  people  and  its  results. 
References.  —  Gardiner,    iii.     972;   McCarthy,    England    under 
Gladstone,  ch.  xvi. 

414.  Mr.  Gladstone's  First  Irish  Home  Rule  Bill. 
Topics. 

I.  General  Gordon. 


632  GROWTH    OF   DEMOCRACY. 

2.  Gladstone's  defeat  and  return  to  i30vver. 

3.  First  Home  Rule  bill. 

Reference.  — McCarthy,  England  under  Gladstone,  ch.  xv. 

415.  Conservatives  and  Liberal  Unionists  in  Power. 

Topics. 

1.  The  coalition  ministry. 

2.  Dispute  with  the  United  States  and  partition  of  Africa. 

3.  County  councils. 

References.  —  Local  Government  Acts  :   Montague,  227,  228  ;  H. 

Taylor,  ii.  S11-S19- 

416.  Mr.  Gladstone's  Last  Effort  for  Ireland. 

Topics. 

1.  Gladstone's  support. 

2.  Second  Home  Rule  bill. 

3.  Gladstone's  resignation. 

4.  Parish  councils. 

417.  The  Third  Salisbury  Ministry. 

Topics.    ' 

1.  Chamberlain  and  Salisbury. 

2.  Quiet  in  Ireland. 

3.  Venezuela  boundary  question. 

4.  Trouble  with  the  Boers. 

References.  —  Bagehot,  English  Constitution,  chs.  i.,  iii.,  iv.,  and 
V.  ;   H.  Taylor,  ii.  544  sqq. 

Research  Questions.  —  (i.)  What  is  meant  by  a  cabinet  govern- 
ment.'* (2.)  How  long  has  it  been  in  force  in  England?  (3.) 
Was  Walpole's  government  that  of  a  cabinet  ?  (4.)  How  could 
it  be  characterized?  (5.)  What  sort  of  government  preceded 
Walpole's  time  ?  (6.)  What  again  preceded  that  ?  (7.)  Who  are 
members  of  the  English  cabinet?  (Montague,  215,  222.)  (8.) 
What  is  the  difference  between  the  cabinet  and  the  ministry  ? 
(9.)  What  is  the  difference  between  the  cabinet  ministers  of  Eng- 
land and  the  members  of  the  cabinet  of  the  United  States? 
(Ransome,  254,  255.)  (10.)  In  what  ways  is  the  Enghsh  the  bet- 
ter system?  (Ransome,  255,  256.)  (11.)  What  are  the  three  nat- 
ural divisions  of  any  government?  (12.)  Should  the  depart- 
ments be  entirely  separate?  (13.)  Whicli  one  is  represented  by 
the  English   Parliament?     (14.)  Who  represent  the  executive  in 


TOPICS,   REFERENCES,    AND    QUESTIONS.     633 

England?  (15.)  Are  the  powers  of  the  Queen  and  Parliament 
entirely  separate?  (Ransome,  251.)  (16.)  How  did  this  come 
about?  (Ransome,  251.)  (17.)  What  are  the  sovereign's  duties? 
(Ransome,  253.)  (18.)  What  provisions  are  made  for  the  crown's 
expenditures?  (Taswell-Langmead,  709.)  (19.)  How  are  the 
judges  appointed  in  England  ?     (Ransome,  258.) 

418.  "  The  Diamond  Jubilee  "  of  Queen  Victoria. 

Topic. 

I.  Victoria's  sixtieth  anniversary. 

419.  The  British-Boer  War. 
Topics. 

1.  Early  migrations  of  Dutch  colonists. 

2.  Concession  of  independence  by  Great  Britain  in  1854. 

3.  Cause  and  result  of  British-Boer  war  of  1880. 

4.  Seeds  of  strife  which  led  to  the  second  war. 

5.  Jameson's  raid  and  the  Outlanders'  grievances. 

6.  The  second  British-Boer  war. 

Research  Question.  —  (i.)  What  is  the  significance  of  the  colo- 
nies volunteering  aid  in  the  defence  of  the  Empire  ? 

420.  Literature  and  Science  in  the  Victorian  Age. 
Topics. 

1.  Three  great  periods  in  literature. 

2.  Great  names  in  poetry  of  Victorian  period. 

3.  In  fiction  and  descriptive  prose. 

4.  Wonderful  advance  in  the  scientific  realm. 
References. —  Gardiner,  iii.  887-890,940-943;  Guest,  574-587; 

Traill,  vi.  25-35,  ^5^-^^7i  275-284,  510-520;  McCarthy;  i.  ch. 
xxix,,  ii.  ch.  Ixvii. 


APPENDIX. 

THE   BRITISH    EMPIRE   IN  1899.^ 

(See  map  on  back  lining.) 

Area.  Population. 

Sq.  M. 

The  United  Kingdom  of  Great 

Britain  and  Ireland  ....  120,979         4o-559'954 

Colonies,  Dependencies,  and  Military  Possessions. 

In  Europe  : 

Gibraltar,  Malta,  and  Gozo    .  119  204,421 

In  Asia  : 

India  (British) 1,068,314       221,172,952 

India  (Feudatory)      ....  731^944         66,050,479 

Ceylon,     Straits     Settlements 

(Singapore,  etc.).  Hong  Kong, 

Labuan,  Aden,  Perim    .     .     .  27,321  4,363^257 

In  Africa : 

Cape  Colony,  Natal,  Basuto- 
land,  Zululand,  Gambia,  Gold 
Coast,  Lagos,  Sierra  Leone, 
Ascension,  Mauritius,  St.  Hel- 
ena       367^928  4,931,780 

In    America  and  the  West    In 

dies  : 
Canada,  Newfoundland,  Lab- 
rador, British  Guiana,  British 
Honduras,    Jamaica,     Bermu- 

1  Statesman'' s  Year  Book,  igoo. 


APPENDIX.  635 

das,  Bahamas,  Barbados,  Trin- 
idad, Turks'  Island,  Tobago, 
Leeward  Islands,  Windward 
Islands,  Falkland  Islands, 
South  Georgia 35952,572  7,260,169 

In  Australasia  : 

Victoria,  New  South  Wales, 
South  Australia,  West  Aus- 
tralia, Queensland,  New  Zea- 
land, New  Guinea,  Tasmania, 
Fiji 3,175,840  5,009,281 

Total  of  United  Kingdom 
with  Colonies,  Depend- 
encies, and  Military  Pos- 
sessions             9,445,017       349^552,293 

Protectorates  and  "  Spheres  of  Influence." 

In  Asia 120,400  1,200,000 

In  Africa 2,160,000         35,000,000 

In  the  Pacific 800  30,000 

Total  of  Protectorates,  etc.         2,281,200         36,230,000 
Total  Empire 11,726,217       385,782,293 


A  WORKING  LIBRARY. 

The  following  books  are  referred  to  in  Larned's  His- 
tory of  England,  either  in  the  text  or  in  the  topics  and 
questions.  They  are  arranged  in  the  numerical  order 
of  reference,  the  first  being  referred  to  over  200  times, 
the  last  10  times  :  — 

1.  Gardiner,  S.  R.  A  Student's  History  of  England.  3  vols. 
Longmans,  New  York.     $3.00  net. 

2.  Bright,  James  F.  History  of  England.  4  vols.  Longmans, 
New  York.     $6.75. 

3.  Green,  J.  R.  A  Short  History  of  the  English  People. 
Harpers,  New  York.     ^1.20. 

4.  Traill,  H.  D.  Social  England.  6  vols.  Putnams,  New 
York.     $21,00. 

5.  Guest,  M.  J.,  and  Underwood,  F.  H.  A  Handbook  of  Eng- 
lish History.     Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

6.  Colby,  C.  W.  Selections  from  the  Sources  of  English  His- 
tory.    Longmans,  New  York.     $1.50. 

7.  Montague,  F.  C.  Elements  of  English  Constitutional  His- 
tory.    Longmans,  New  York.     $1.25. 

8.  Ransome,  Cyril.  Rise  of  Constitutional  Government  in 
England.     Longmans,  New  York.     $2.00. 

%  9.  Taswell-Langmead.        English      Constitutional      History. 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston.     $6.00. 

10.  Taylor,  H.  The  English  Constitution.  2  vols.  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston.     $9.00. 

11.  GiBBiNS,  Henry  de  Beltgens.  Industrial  History  of  Eng- 
land.    Scribners,  New  York.     $1.20. 

12.  Cunningham  and  McArthur.  Outlinesof  English  Indus- 
trial History.     Macmillan,  New  York.     $1.50. 

13.  Moberly,  C.  E.  The  Early  Tudors.  Longmans,  New 
York.     $1.00. 

14.  Stubbs,  W.  The  Early  riantagenets.  Epoch  Series.  Long- 
mans, New  York.     $1.00. 


APPENDIX.  637 

15.  Stubbs,  William.     Constitutional  History.     3  vols.     Clar- 
endon Press,  New  York.     $2,60  each. 

16.  Gairdxer,  J.     Houses  of  Lancaster  and  York.     Longmans, 
New  York.     #1.00. 

17.  Creighton,  Bishop   M.     The   Age  of   Elizabeth.     Epoch 
Series.     Longmans,  New  York.     $1.00. 

18.  Hale,  E.     The  Fall  of  the  Stuarts.     Epoch  Series.     Long- 
mans, New  York.     $1.00. 

19.  Harrison,  F.     Oliver  Cromwell.     Twelve  English  States- 
men Series.     Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

20.  Gardiner,  S.  R.     The  Puritan  Revolution.     Epoch  Series. 
Longmans,  New  York.     $1.00. 

Gardiner,  S.  R.     Atlas  of  English  History.     Longmans,  New 
York.     ;?i.5o  net. 

21.  Rogers,  J.  E.  T.      Six    Centuries   of   Work   and   Wages. 
Sonnenschein  &  Co.,  London.     los.  6d. 

22.  Green,  J.  R,    History  of  the  English  People.    8  vols.    Mac- 
millan, New  York.     I1.25  per  vol. 

23.  Macaulay,  Lord.     History  of  England.     4  vols.     Hough- 
ton, Mifflin  &  Co.,  Boston.     $5.00. 

24.  McCarthy,  Justin.     History  of  Our  Own  Times.     2  vols. 
Harpers,  New  York.     #2.50. 

25.  Beesly,  Edward  S.     Queen  Elizabeth.     Twelve  English 
Statesmen  Series.     Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 


AN    ADDITIONAL   LIST   OF   BOOKS 

VALUABLE     IN     THE     FORMATION     OF    A    LIBRARY     OF 

ENGLISH    HISTORY. 

This  list  is  arranged  alphabetically.  Nearly  all  of  the 
books  are  referred  to  in  Larned's  History,  but  a  few 
have  been  added  to  give  a  greater  comprehensiveness  to 
the  list :  — 

Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle.     See  Bede. 

Ashley,  William  J.  Introduction  to  English  Economic  His- 
tory and  Theory.  2  parts.  Longmans,  New  York.  Part  I.  $1.25; 
Part  11.  $2.60. 

Bagehot,  Walter.  English  Constitution.  Appleton,  New 
York.     $2.00. 


6^8  APPENDIX. 

Bagehot,  Walter.  Lombard  Street.  Kegan  Paul,  Trench, 
Triibner  &  Co.,  London.     3s.  6d. 

Bede,  Venerable.  Ecclesiastical  History  with  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle  (Bohn).     Macmillan,  New  York.     $1.50. 

Brewer,  John  S.  Reign  of  Henry  VII L  to  Death  of  Wolsey. 
2  vols.     J.  Murray,  London. 

BuLFiNCH,  Thomas.  Age  of  Chivalry.  Lee  &  Shepard,  Boston. 
$2.50. 

BuLWER,  Edward  G.  (Lord  Lytton).  Harold.  George  Rout- 
ledge  &  Sons,  New  York.     $0.60. 

BusCH,  WiLHELM.  England  under  the  Tudors.  Innes  &  Co., 
London.     Vol.  i.     i6s.  net. 

C^SAR,  Julius.  Commentaries  (Classical  Library).  Harpers, 
New  York.     $0.75. 

Church,  Alfred  John.  Heroes  of  Chivalry  and  Romance. 
Macmillan,  New  York.     $1.75. 

Church,  R.  W.  Beginnings  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Longmans, 
New  York.     $1.00. 

Clark,  George  T.  Mediaeval  Military  Architecture  in  Eng- 
land.    2  vols.     Wyman  &  Sons,  London. 

Creasy,  Sir  Edward  S.  Fifteen  Decisive  Battles.  Harpers, 
New  York.     $1.00. 

Creighton,  C.  Cardinal  Wolsey.  Twelve  English  Statesmen 
Series.     Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

Creighton,  Bishop  M.  Simon  de  Montfort.  Longmans,  New 
York.     $1.00. 

Cunningham,  W.  Growth  of  English  Industry  and  Commerce. 
2  vols.  Macmillan,  New  York.  Early  and  Middle  Ages,  I4.00  ; 
Modern  Times,  ^4.50. 

Dixon,  Canon.  History  of  the  Church  of  England.  4  vols. 
Geo.  Routledge  &  vSons,  New  York.     $4.00  per  vol. 

Encyclopedia  Britannica.  24  vols.  Adam  »&  Chas.  Black. 
London. 

Freeman,  E.  A.  Growth  of  the  English  Constitution.  Mac- 
millan, New  York.     $1.75. 

Freeman,  E.  A.  Old  English  History'.  Macmillan,  New  York. 
^1.50. 

Freeman,  E.  A.  History  of  the  Norman  Conquest.  6  vols. 
Clarendon  Press,  Oxford.     $5.25  each.     Vol.  vi..  Index.     $2.75. 

Freeman,  E.  A.  Short  History  of  the  Norman  Conquest. 
Clarendon  Press,  New  York.     $0.60. 


APPENDIX.  639 

Freeman,  E,  A.  William  the  CoiKjueror.  Twelve  English 
Statesmen  Series.     Macmillan,  New  York.     #0.75. 

Friedmann,  Paul.  Anne  Boleyn.  Macmillan,  New  York.  2 
vols.     $7.00. 

Froude,  James  A.  History  of  England.  12  vols.  Scribners, 
New  York.     $18.00. 

Gairdxer,  J.  Henry  VII.  Twelve  English  Statesmen  Series. 
Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

Gardiner,  S.  R.  History  of  England,  1603-1642.  10  vols. 
Longmans,  New  York.     $20.00. 

Gardiner,  S.  R.  Great  Civil  War,  1642-1649.  4  vols.  Long- 
mans, New  York.     $2.00  each. 

Gardiner,  S.  R.  Commonwealth  and  Protectorate.  2  vols. 
Longmans,  New  York.     $7.00  each. 

GiLBART,  J.  W.  von.  On  Banking.  2  vols.  Bohn.  Geo.  Bell 
&  Sons,  London.     los. 

Gneist,  Dr.  Rudolf.  History  of  the  English  Constitution. 
Wm.  Clowes  &  Sons,  London.     7s.  6d. 

Green,  J.  R.  Making  of  England.  2  vols.  Macmillan,  New 
York.     $2.50. 

Green,  Mrs.  J.  R.  Henry  II.  Twelve  English  Statesmen 
Series.     Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

Hallam,  Henry.  Constitutional  History  of  England.  Mr. 
Murray,  London.     Student's  Edition,  7s.  6d. 

Howell,  George.  Conflict  of  Capital  and  Labor.  Macmillan, 
New  York.     $1.85. 

Hughes,  T.  Life  of  Alfred  the  Great.  Macmillan,  New  York. 
$1.00. 

Johnson,  A.  H.  Normans  in  Europe.  Longmans,  New  York. 
$1.00. 

Lanier,  Sidney.  The  Boys'  King  Arthur.  Scribners,  New 
York.     $2.00. 

Lappenberg,  Johann  Martin.  A  History  of  England  under 
the  Saxon  Kings.  Bohn.  2  vols.  Geo.  Bell  &  Sons,  London. 
3s.  6d.  per  vol. 

Earned,  J.  N.  History  for  Ready  Reference.  5  vols.  Nichols, 
Springfield,  Mass.     $25.00. 

Lecky,  W.  E.  H.  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury.    8  vols.     Appleton,  New  York.     $20.00. 

LiNGARD,  Rev.  John.  History  of  England.  10  vols.  Cum- 
miskey,  Philadelphia. 


640  APPENDIX. 

Macaulay,  Lord.  Essays  (Clive  and  Warren  Hastings).  Long- 
mans, New  York.     Clive  $0.75  ;   Hastings  $0.50. 

Macaulay,  Lord.  Essay  on  Milton.  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 
Boston.     I0.25. 

Mahan,  a.  T.  Life  of  Nelson.  2  vols.  Little,  Brown  &  Co., 
Boston.     $8.00. 

Mahan,  A.  T.  Lifluence  of  Sea  Power  on  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  Empire.     2  vols.     Little,  Brown  &  Co.     $6.00. 

Mahon,  Earl  Stanhope.  History  of  England  1701-1783.  9 
vols.     Mr.  Murray,  London.     5s.  per  vol. 

Maitland,  F.  W.  Domesday  Book  and  Beyond.  Little,  Brown 
&  Co.,  Boston.     I4.50  net. 

May,  Sir  T.  E.  Constitutional  History  of  England.  3  vols. 
Longmans,  New  York.     $4.50. 

McCarthy,  Justin.  England  under  Gladstone.  Chatto  & 
Windus,  London.     6s. 

MoRLEY,  John.  Walpole.  Twelve  English  Statesmen  Series. 
Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

Morris,  E.  E.     Age  of  Anne.     Longmans,  New  York.     |i.oo. 

Morris,  E.  E.  Early  Hanoverians.  Longmans,  New  York. 
$1.00. 

Motley,  J.  L.  History  of  the  United  Netherlands.  4  vols. 
Mr.  Murray,  London.     6s.  per  vol. 

Pattison,  Mark.    Life  of  Milton.    Harpers,  New  York.    $0.75. 

Pauli,  Dr.  R.  Alfred  the  Great  (Bohn).  Macmillan,  New 
York.     $1.50. 

Pearson,  C.  H.  History  of  England  during  the  Early  and 
Middle  Ages.     2  vols.     Bell  &  Daldy,  London. 

Pollock,  Sir  F.,  and  Maitland,  F.  W.  History  of  English 
Law  before  the  Time  of  Edward  I.  2  vols.  Little,  Brown  &  Co., 
Boston.     $9.00  net. 

Ranke,  L.  von.  History  of  England.  6  vols.  Clarendon  Press, 
New  York.     $16.00. 

Rhys,  Prof.  John.  Celtic  Britain.  E.  and  J.  B.  Young  &  Co., 
New  York.     $0.75. 

Ripley,  William  Z.  Races  of  Europe.  2  vols.  Appleton, 
New  York.     $6.00. 

Rogers,  J.  E.  T.  History  of  Agriculture  and  Prices  in  England. 
8  vols.  Clarendon  Press,  New  York.  Vols.  i.  and  ii.  (i 259-1400) 
$10.50;  vols.  iii.  and  iv.  (1401-1582)  $12.50  ;  vols.  v.  and  vi.  (1583- 
1702)  $12.50;  vols.  vii.  and  viii.  (in  press). 


APPENDIX.  641 

RosEBERY,  Lord.  Pitt.  Twelve  English  Statesmen  Series. 
Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

Seeley,  Sir  John  R.  Expansion  of  England.  Little,  Brown 
&  Co.,  Boston.     $1.75. 

Seeley,  Sir  John  R.  Growth  of  British  Policy.  2  vols.  Mac- 
millan, New  York.     $3.50. 

Southey,  Robert.  Life  of  Nelson.  Macmillan,  New  York. 
$0.50. 

Stubbs,  William,  Editor.  Select  Charters,  etc.,  of  English 
Constitutional  History.     Clarendon  Press,  -New  York.     $2.10. 

Tacitus.  Agricola  and  Germania.  Macmillan,  New  York. 
$0.90. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord.  Harold.  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 
Boston.     Tennyson,  Cambridge  Edition.     $2.00. 

Thursfield,  J.  R.  Peel.  Twelve  English  Statesmen  Series. 
Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

Tout,  T.  F.  Edward  I.  Twelve  English  Statesmen  Series. 
Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

Traill,  H.  D.  WilHam  II L  Twelve  English  Statesmen  Series. 
Macmillan,  New  York.     $0.75. 

Turner,  Sharon.     History  of  the  Anglo-Saxons.     2  vols. 

ViNOGRADOFF,  PAUL.  Villanage  in  England.  Clarendon  Press, 
Oxford.     $4.00. 

Walpole,  Spencer.  History  of  England  from  1815.  6  vols. 
Longmans,  New  York.     $2.00  per  vol. 

Warburton,  W.     Edward  III.    Longmans,  New  York.    $1.00. 

Wylie,  J.  H.  History  of  England  under  Henry  IV.  4  vols, 
Longmans,  New  York.     $20.50. 


ILLUSTRATIVE    FICTION    IN    POETRY   AND 

PROSE. 

The  following  is  a  selection  of  the  more  notable  dramas, 
romances,  and  poems  which  have  been  founded  on  historical 
events,  or  on  legends  growing  out  of  historical  events,  or 
written  to  illustrate  the  state  of  the  country  and  the  life  of 
the  people  in  different  periods  of  English  history. 

Celtic  and  Roman  Britain.  Drama :  the  Cymbeline  of 
Shakespeare.  Poem  :  the  Boadicea  of  Tennyson.  Romance  : 
The  Coimt  of  the  Saxon  Shore ^  by  A.  J.  Church  ;  The  Villa  oj 
Claudius^  by  E.  L.  Cutts. 

Legendary  King  Arthur  and  his  Knights.  Malory's 
Morte  d' Arthur^  ed.  by  AVright ;  The  Mabbiogion^  translated 
by  Lady  Guest;  Ellis's  Spechjtens  of  Early  English  RomaJices ; 
Tennyson's  Idyls  of  the  King  and  The  Holy  Grail ;  Matthew 
Arnold's  Tristram  and  Iseult ;  Swinburne's  Tristram  of 
Lyonesse ;  Wagner's  Tristan  and  Isolde  and  Parsifal ;  Lanier's 
Boy^s  King  Art/mr  and  Boy^s  Mabinogion  ;  Bulfinch's  Age  of 
Chivalry. 

Early  England.  Edwin  of  Deira,  a  poem,  by  Alexander 
Smith  ;  Old  English  Sojig  of  the  Eight  at  Maldo?i  (translated 
by  Prof.  Freeman  in  Old  English  History  for  Children  :  also, 
in  part,  by  Lanier,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  August,  1898). 

Early  Scotland.     Shakespeare's  Alacbeth. 

Alfred  the  Great  and  the  Danes.  Alfred  the  Great,  at 
Athelnay,  a  drama,  by  Stratford  Canning  ;  Scouring  the  White 
Horse  (relating  to  King  Alfred),  by  Thomas  Hughes;  Edwin 
the  Fair,  a  drama,  by  Henry  Taylor ;  The  Duke  of  Mercia,  a 
drama  (of  the  time  of  Edmund  Ironside),  by  Aubrey  de  Vere  ; 
Ca?iute  the  Great,  a  drama,  by  Michael  Field,  pseud. ;  King 
Canute,  a  ballad,  by  Thackeray. 


I 


APPENDIX.  643 

The  Norman  Conquest.  Tennyson's  Harold  {2.  drama) ; 
Bulwer-Lytton's  Harold,  the  Last  of  the  Saxon  Ki?tgs ;  Charles 
Kingsley's  Hemvard  the  Wake,  Last  of  the  English  (a  tale). 

^A(^illiam  Rufus.  Landor's  Walter  lyrrel  and  William 
Rufus  (in  Acts  and  Scenes) ;  William  Rufus,  a  drama,  by 
Michael  Field,  pseud. 

Henry  II.  and  Thomas  a  Becket.  Dramas :  Becket,  by 
Tennyson ;  St.  Thomas  of  Catiterbury,  by  Aubrey  de  Vere  ; 
Henry  LL.,  by  Arthur  Helps  ;  Thojnas  a  Becket,  by  Douglas 
Jerrold. 

Robin  Hood  and  the  time  of  Richard  Cceur  de 
Lion.  English  a?id  Scottish  Popular  L^allads,  ed.  by  Prof. 
Child,  part  5  ;  Ritson's  collection  of  the  ballads  of  Robin 
Hood  ;  Tennyson's  The  Foresters  (a  drama  of  Robin  Hood) ; 
'^coit's  Lv  an  hoe ;  Landor's  Richard  L.  and  the  Abbot  of  Boxley 
(in  Lmaginary  Conversations)  ;  Pyle's  Merry  Adventures  of 
Robin  Hood. 

Magna  Carta  and  the  Beginnings  of  the  English 
House  of  Commons.  Shakespeare's  King  fohn ;  The 
Constable  of  the  Tower  (a  tale  of  the  time  of  John),  by  Miss 
Yonge  ;  Palgrave's  The  Mei^chant  and  the  Friar  (reign  of 
Edward  I.)  ;  Peard's  Prentice  Hugh. 

The  Reigns  of  Edward  II.  and  III.  and  Richard  II. 
Edward  the  Second,  a  tragedy,  by  Marlowe  ;  Edward  the 
Third,  a  drama  sometimes  ascribed,  in  whole  or  part,  to 
Shakespeare  ;  Shakespeare's  King  Richard  the  Second;  Lan- 
dor's John  of  Gaunt  and  Joanna  of  Kent  (in  Lmaginary  Conver- 
sations) ;  Chaucer's  Ca7itej'bury  Tales,  and  Langland's  Vision 
and  Creed  of  I^iers  LLowman  (contemporary  poems  repre- 
sentative of  the  time)  :  Child's  English  and  Scottish  Popular 
Ballads,  part  5  ;  Miss  Yonge's  Latices  of  Lynwood  {^  tale). 

The  Lollards.  A  Dream  of  fohn  Ball,  by  William 
Morris  ;  fack  of  the  Mill,  by  William  Howitt. 

The  Lancastrian  Kings.  Shakespeare's  King  Henry 
the  Fourth,  King  He?iry  the  Llfth,  and  King  Henry  the  Sixth ; 
Henry  TV.  and  Sir  Arnold  Savage,  by  Landor  (in  Linaginary 


644  APPENDIX. 

Conversations) ;  The  Caged  Lion  (romance  of  the  captivity  of 
James  I.  of  Scotland),  by  Miss  Yonge  ;  A  Noble  Purpose,  by 
Anne  Manning. 

Joan  of  Arc.  The  Maid  of  Orleans,  2i  drama,  from  the 
German  of  Schiller  ;  Jeanne  Dare,  a  drama,  by  Tom  Taylor. 

The  Wars  of  the  Roses,  and  the  Yorkist  Kings. 
The  Last  of  the  Barons,  by  Bulwer-Lytton  ;  The  Black  Arrow, 
by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  ;  The  Chantry  Priest  of  Barnet, 
by  A.  J.  Church ;  The  York  and  Lancaster  Rose,  by  Annie 
Keary  ;   Shakespeare's  King  Richard  the  Third. 

The  Reign  of  Henry  VII.  The  Fortunes  of  Perkin 
Warbeck,  by  Mrs.  Shelley. 

Henry  VIII.  and  his  Times.  Shakespeare's  King 
ILe?iry  the  Eighth ;  dramas  relating  to  Anne  Boleyn,  by  Dean 
Milman,  Tom  Taylor,  and  George  H.  Boker ;  Scott's  poems  of 
Marmion,  a  tale  of  Flodden  Field,  and  The  Lady  of  the  Lake 
(James  V.)  ;  Henry  VJLI.  and  Anne  Boleyn,  by  Landor  (in  Acts 
and  Scenes  and  in  Li7iaginary  Conversations)  ;  The  Household  of 
Sir  Thomas  More  and  The  Lincolnshire  Tragedy,  by  Anne 
Manning  ;  The  Armourer's  PreJitices,  by  Miss  Yonge  ;  When 
Knighthood  was  in  Flower  (a  love  story  of  the  second  mar- 
riage of  Mary  Tudor),  by  Charles  Major. 

The  Reign  of  Edward  VI.  and  Lady  Jane  Grey. 
Colloquies  of  Edward  Oslwrne,  a  tale,  by  Anne  Manning ; 
The  Tragedy  of  Lady  fane  Grey,  by  Nicholas  Rowe  ;  Roger 
Ascham  and  Lady  fane  Grey,  by  Landor  (in  Lmaginary  Con- 
versations).  , 

Queen  Mary  Tudor  and  her  Reign.  The  Fa7nous  His- 
tory of  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt,  a  drama,  by  Dekker  and  Webster  ; 
Queen  Mary,  a  drama,  by  Tennyson  ;  Mary  Tudor,  a  drama, 
by  Aubrey  de  Vere ;  Twixt  Axe  and  Crown,  or  the  Lady 
Elizabeth,  a  drama,  by  Tom  Taylor ;  The  Story  of  Fra?icis 
Cludde,  by  Stanley  J.  Weyman ;  Princess  Mary  and  Princess 
Elizabeth,  by  I^andor  (in  Imaginary  Conversations). 

Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of  Scots.  Mary  Stuart,  a  tragedy, 
by  Schiller  ;  Bothwell,  Chastelard,  Mary  Stuart,  three  dramas. 


APPENDIX.  645 

by  Swinburne ;  Mary  and  Bothwell,  by  Landor  (in  Tmaginary 
Conversations)  ;  Unknotuni  to  History^  a  tale,  by  Miss  Yonge  ; 
The  Queen's  Maries,  by  Whyte-Melville. 

Shakespeare.  Citation  and  Examination  of  William 
Shakespeare  before  the  Worshipful  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  Knight, 
touching  Deer-stealing,  by  Landor  ;  The  Youth  of  Shakespeare 
and  Shakespeare  and  his  Friends,  novels  by  R.  F.  Williams  ; 
fudith  Shakespeare,  a  novel  by  Black. 

The  Elizabethan  Sea-Rovers,  and  the  Spanish 
Armada.  Westward  Ho,  by  Charles  Kingsley  ;  hi  the  Days 
of  Drake,  by  J.  S.  Fletcher  ;  The  Armada,  a  poem,  by  Ma- 
caulay. 

Other  Events  and  Persons  in  the  Time  of  Queen 
Elizabeth.  Die  Beggar  of  Bethnal  Green,  a  drama,  by 
Sheridan  Knowles ;  The  White  Doe  of  Rylstone,  a  poem,  by 
Wordsworth ;  Ke7iilworth,  by  Scott  ;  Queen  Elizabeth  and 
Cecil,  and  Queen  Elizabeth,  Cecil,  the  Duke  of  Anjou,  and 
Fenelon,  by  Landor  (in  Imaginary  Conversations)  ;  Maelcho 
and  With  Essex  in  Ireland,  by  Emily  Lawless. 

The  Reign  of  James  I.  The  Fortunes  of  Nigel,  by 
Scott ;  James  I  and  Isaac  Casaubon,  by  Landor  (in  Imagi- 
najy  Conversations). 

Charles  I.  and  the  Civil  War,  Charles  the  First,  a 
drama,  by  Shelley  ;  Strafford,  an  Historical  Tragedy,  by  Rob- 
ert Browning  (published,  with  an  introduction,  by  Prof.  S.  R. 
Gardiner,  and  notes  by  Emily  H.  Hickey) ;  Charles  the  First, 
an  Historical  Tragedy,  by  Miss  Mitford  ;  Rokeby,  a  poem,  by 
Scott ;  Lege?id  of  Montrose,  by  Scott  ;  Memoirs  of  a  Cavalier, 
by  Defoe  ;  The  Splendid  Spur,  a  romance,  by  Arthur  T. 
Quiller  Couch  ;  The  Draytons  and  the  Davenants,  by  Mrs. 
Charles  ;  John  Inglesant,  by  J.  N.  Shorthouse  ;  Under  the 
Storm,  by  Miss  Yonge  ;  With  the  King  at  Oxford,  by  A.  J. 
Church  ;  Admiral  Blake  and  Humphrey  Blake,  by  Landor  (in 
Imaginary  Co?iversations) . 

The  Common^vealth.  The  satirical  poem,  Hudibi-as, 
by  Samuel    Butler;    Scotl's   romance,    Woodstock;    On  Both 


646  APPENDIX. 

Sides  of  the  Sea  (a  sequel  to  The  Draytons  a?id  the  Dave- 
nants)^  by  Mrs.  Charles  ;  Pigeon^  Fie^  a  tale  of  Roimdhead 
Times,  by  Miss  Yonge ;  Scapegrace  Dick,  by  Frances  M. 
Peard  ;  Saxby,  a  tale  of  Old  and  New  Efigland,  by  Emma 
Leslie. 

Cromwell  and  the  Protectorate,  Cro?nwell,  a  poem, 
by  Matthew  Arnold  ;  Cro7nwell,  a  drama,  from  the  French  of 
Victor  Hugo ;  Oliver  Cromwell  and  Walter  Noble,  Oliver 
Cromwell  and  Sir  Oliver  Cromwell,  and  Milton  and  A?idrew 
Marvel,  by  Landor  (in  Imaginary  Conversations)  ;  Deborah^ s 
Diary  (Deborah  being  Milton's  daughter)  and  The  Maiden 
and  Married  Life  of  Mary  Powell,  afterwards  Mistress  Mil- 
ton, by  Anne  Manning  ;  fohn  Milton  and  his  Times,  a  histori- 
cal novel,  from  the  German  of  Max  Ring ;  CroiJiwelPs  Own, 
by  Arthur  Paterson. 

Restoration  Times  and  Persons.  Peveril  of  the  Peak, 
by  Scott ;  History  of  the  Great  Plague  in  London,  by  De  Foe  ; 
Cherry  and  Violet,  a  tale  of  the  great  plague,  by  Anne  Man- 
ning ;  In  the  East  Country  with  Sir  Thomas  B?'owne,  and  Ln 
the  Service  of  Rachel,  Lady  Russell,  by  Mrs.  Emma  Marshall; 
Caleb  Field,  by  Mrs.  Oliphant ;  Lorna  Doone,  a  romance  of 
Exmoor,  by  R.  D.  Rlackmore. 

Dryden's  Political  Poems.  Annus  Mirabilis,  the  Year 
of  Wonders,  1666  (relating  to  the  naval  war  with  the  Dutch 
and  the  great  fire)  ;  Absalom  and  Achitophel  (relating  to  the 
intrigues  of  Shaftesbury  with  the  Duke  of  Monmouth)  ;  The 
Hind  and  the  Panther  (in  sympathy  with  the  Roman  Church, 
as  against  the  persecuting  Church  of  England). 

Monmouth's  Rebellion.  For  Faith  and  Freedom,  a  tale, 
by  Walter  Besant ;  Micah  Clarke,  by  A.  Con  an  Doyle  ;  The 
Danvers  Papers,  by  Miss  Yonge ;  The  Duke  of  Monmouth, 
by  Gerald  Griffin. 

The  Times  of  William  and  Mary,  and  of  Anne. 
Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  (papers  from  The  Spectato?'),  by  Addi- 
son ;  The  History  of  Henry  Esmond,  by  Thackeray  ;  Shreias- 
bu7y,  by  Stanley  J.  Weyman  ;   IVie  Idle  of  a  Tub  (a  satire  on 


APPENDIX.  647 

the  contentions  of  the  Roman,  English,  and  Presbyterian 
churches)  and  Gu/Zii'er's  Trcwcls  (a  satire  on  EngHsh  parties 
and  poUtics  and  on  society  in  general),  by  Dean  Swift ;  His- 
tory of  John  Bull,  by  Arbuthnot. 

Life  and  Society  in  the  Time  of  the  First  Georges. 
The  Dunciad  (a  satire  on  the  writers  of  the  time),  by  Pope ; 
The  History  of  Clarissa  Harlowe^  Pamela,  and  2he  History 
of  Sir  Chai'les  Grandison  (contemporary  tales),  by  Richard- 
son ;  The  Virgi7iia?is,  by  Thackeray  ;  The  Diary  of  Mrs.  Kitty 
Trezylyan,  a  story  oj  the  times  of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys, 
by  Mrs.  Charles  ;  The  Chaplain  of  the  Fleet,  by  Besant  and 
Rice  ;    The  World  went  very  well  then,  by  Besant. 

The  Jacobites  and  the  Rebellions  of  1715  and  1745. 
Rob  Roy^  Red  Gauntlet,  and  Waver  ley,  by  Scott ;  Kidnapped 
and  David  Balfour,  by  Stevenson  ;  Spanish  fohn,  by  William 
McLennan  ;  Cerise,  by  Whyte-Melville  \  Dorothy  Forster,  by 
Besant. 

Life  and  Society  in  the  Reign  of  George  III.  The 
Citizen  of  the  World  (letters  purporting  to  be  written  by  a 
Chinese  philosopher,  from  London),  by  Oliver  Goldsmith  ; 
the  novels  of  Jane  Austen  ;  Bracehridge  Hall,  by  Washington 
Irving  ;  Vanity  Fair,  by  Thackeray  ;  Saint  Ro7ia7i^s  Well,  by 
Scott ;  Adam  Bede  and  Silas  Maimer,  by  George  Eliot. 

The  Gordon  Riots.     Bar?iaby  Rudge,  by  Dickens. 

The  Reform  Agitations  and  Chartism.  Felix  Holt, 
the  Radical,  by  George  Eliot ;  Alton  Locke  and  Yeast,  by 
Charles  Kingsley  ;  Sybil,  or  the  Two  Nations,  by  Disraeli. 

The  Famine  in  Ireland.  The  Black  Prophet,  by  Carle- 
ton  ;  Mike,  by  E.  N.  Hoare  ;  Castle  Richmo7id,  by  Anthony 
Trollope  ;  Castle  Daly,  by  Annie  Keary. 


INDEX 

In  this  Index  the  pronunciation  of  difficult  words  is  showni  in  parentheses ;  the 
geographical  location  of  places  mentioned  in  tlie  text  is  indicated  by  the  word  niaj)^  fol- 
lowed by  the  page  number  and  the  key  letters  showing  position  upon  the  map. 


Aberdeen   (aberdeen')  Ministry,  the,  608- 

9.  _ 

Aboukir  (aboo'klr)  Bay,   558  ;    wiffp,  574, 

Fc. 
Absolutism,   the   growth   of,   in  the    IGth 

century,  248. 
Academy,  the  French,  343. 
Acre  (a'ker  or  a'ker).  siege  of,  558  ;  map, 

574,  Fc. 
Act  of  Settlement,  the,  495. 
Addington,  Henry,  572-3. 
Addison,  Joseph,  498,  584. 
Addled  Parliament,  the,  301. 
Adela  (ad'ela)  daughter  of  William  I.,  98. 
Acadia  (aca'dia),  501  ;  iiutp  (Nova  Scotia), 

end  lining,  Gc. 
Afghanistan     (afganistiin'),    disaster     in, 

(1839),  597  ;  (1879),  G17  ;  maj>,  52(;,  Aa. 
Africa,  European  partition  of,  British-Boer 

War,   5(;9,  (317,   620,   622-7 ;    map,    end 

lining,  Le. 
Agincourt    (azhankoor'),    battle  of,    214 ; 

map,  110,  Dc. 
Agitators  of  the  army,  415. 
Agreement  of  the  People,  the,  417. 
Aidan,  St.,  liis  mission  to  England,  29. 
Aix-la-Chapelle  (aksliishapel'),  the  treaty 

of,  522  ;  map,  574,  Ca. 
''  Alabama  claims,"  the,  613-14,  616. 
Albau,  the  kingdom  of,  45;  map  (Scots), 

19. 
Alberoni  (albaro'ne)  479-80. 
Albert,  Prince,  598,  60S,  612. 
Alcuin  (al'kwTn),  31. 
Aldlielni,  or  Ealdhelm,  32,  44. 
Alexandria,  254  ;  map,  574,  Ec. 
Alexander  YI.,  pope,  206. 
Alford  (awl'ford),  map.  313. 
Alfred  the  Great,  his  life  and  work  (with 

map  and  portrait),  ;59-42. 
Alma  (iil'ma),  battle  of  the,  609  ;  map,blA, 

Fb. 
Alsace    (alsas'),    acquisition  and    loss  by 

France,  494,  568 ;  niaj),  574.  Cb. 
America  :  The  gifts  of  Engiana  to,  v ;  the 

discovery  of,  and   its  effects,  202,  205; 

discoveries  bj'  the  Cabots,  261  ;  colonial 

settlement,  348,  357-8,  470,  522-3.     See, 

also.  United  States. 
American  history,  its  coiuiectiou  with  Eng- 
lish, V. 


Amiens  (ii'mTan),  peace  of,  571 ;  map,  110, 
Dc. 

Amsterdam,  254  ;  map,  574,  Ca. 

Angeln  (iing'eln),  the  old  English  home,  15; 
map,  16. 

Angevin  (an'gevTns)  empire,  the,  109 ;  its 
loss  by  the  English  kings,  13(;. 

Anglo-Saxon  arts  and  conditions  of  life, 
43-5. 

Anglo-Saxon  Chronicle,  the,  15,  17,  42,  94, 
100. 

Anglo-Saxon  society  and  institutions,  21-6, 
43.  _ 

Anjou  (onzhoo'),  in  the  dominion  of  Henry 
II.  and  his  sons,  109  ;  its  loss,  136:  Eng- 
lish kings  of  the  Angevin  House,  130; 
map,  no,  CA. 

Anne,  as  princess,  458,  467,  495 ;  as  queen 
(with  portrait),  496-503. 

Anne  of  Bohemia,  182,  210. 

Amie  of  Cleves,  276-7. 

Anne  of  Denmark,  351. 

Anselm,  Archbishop,  84,  88. 

Anti-Corn-Law  League,  599. 

Antwerp,  254  ;   maji,  574,  Ca. 

Aquitaiue  (akwetan'),  a  fief  of  the  French 
crown,  54;  its  acquisition  by  Henry  II., 
101  ;  oppressed  by  Richard  Co:'ur  de 
Lion,  117  ;  mider  the  Black  Prince,  175  ; 
ceded  in  full  sovereignty  to  Edward  III., 
175;  lost  by  Henry  VI.,  221  ;  map,  110, 
Dd. 

Arab  (ar'ab)  conquests,  54-5. 

Aragon  (ar'agon),  early  popular  institutions 
in,  \?>?,.  150;   map,  574,  Bb. 

Arbitration,  Geneva,  the,  (U6. 

Arbuthnot  (ar^buthnSt),  John,  498. 

Archer,  mediaeval,  picture  of,  170. 

Architecture,  mediaeval  development  of, 
.57-8,  134^_ 

Argyle  (argyle')  rebellion,  the,  462. 

Aristocracy,  early  growth  of,  24-6. 

Arkwriglit's  invention.  .546. 

Arlette  (ar'lette),  or  Herleva,  59. 

Armada,  the  Invincible  (witli  picture), 
325-7. 

Armagnacs  (armanyak'),  162,  213-15. 

Army  :  Mutiny  Act,  487  ;  sale  of  commis- 
sions abolished,  61(J. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  628. 


650 


INDEX. 


Art :  the  13th  century  revival  in  Italy,  134, 
164  ;  of  the  15th  century  in  Italy,  203 ;  in 
the  16th  century,  254.  See,  also.  Archi- 
tecture, and  Music. 

Arthur,  King,  the  legends  of,  21,  57,  95, 
102,  120. 

Arthur,  of  Brittany,  135. 

Arts,  Anglo-Saxon.  43-5. 

Ashburton  treaty,  the,  601. 

Aspern,  battle  of.  580  ;  map,  574,  Db. 

Assize  (assize')  of  Arms,  the,  120. 

Assize  of  Clarendon,  the,  etc.,  119. 

Athelings,  24. 

Atheluey  (ath'ehiey),  King  Alfred  at,  40  ; 
map,  42,  Bd. 

Attainder  of  Tliomas  Cromwell,  277  ;  of 
Stratford,  389-90  ;  of  Laud,  411. 

Augsburg  (augs'bQrg),  Religious  Peace  of, 
251 ;  map,  574,  Db. 

Augustine,  St.,  his  mission  to  the  English, 
28. 

Austerlitz  (as'terlTtz),  battle  of,  574  ;  map, 
574,  Db.  " 

Australia  added  to  the  British  Empire, 
537  ;  participation  in  Boer  War,  627 ; 
map,  end  lining,  Qg. 

Austria  :  rise  of  the  House  of,  132, 163,  205 ; 
the  Thirty  Years'  War,  343-4  ;  War  of  the 
Austrian  Succession,  480-81,  520-22;  the 
Seven  Weeks'  War  with  Prussia,  567 ; 
formation  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  Em- 
pire, 568  ;  map,  574,  Db. 

Austrian-Spanish  family  power,  the,  248-52, 
345. 

Avignon  (iivenyon'),  Babylonian  Captivity 
at,  161  ;  map,  110,  Ee. 

Babington  Plot,  the,  321-2. 

Babylonian  Captivity  of  the  popes,  the,  161. 

Bacon,  Francis  (with  portrait),  330-1,  342, 

353,  360,  3&5. 
Bacon,  Roger,  1.56,  198. 
Balaclava  (balaclii'va),  battle  of,  609  ;  map, 

574,  Fb. 
Ball,  John  (with  picture),  180. 
Balliol  (bal'lTol),  King  John  I.,  152;  II., 

168,  171. 
Ballot,  introduction  of  the,  61G. 
Banbury) ;  map,  404,  Cb. 
Bank  of  England,  the,  496. 
Bannockbum    (bannockbfirn'),    battle    of, 

166;  map,  313. 
Barbour  (biir'ber),  John,  Scottish  poet,  185. 
Barebones  Parliament,  the,  433-4. 
Bamet,  battle  of,  238 ;  map,  110,  Cc. 
Baron's  War,  the,  145-7. 
Basing  House,  the  storming  of,  413  ;  map), 

404,  Cc. 
Bath,    the    Roman    city,    10 ;    picture    of 

remains  of  Roman  bath,  9  ;  map,  8. 
Battle  Abbey,  62. 
Bavaria.  482,  .")70  :  map,  574,  Db. 
Baxter,  Richard,  442. 
Bayeux  (bayu')   tapestry  (with   pictures), 

47,  60,  61,  63. 
Bayonne  (bayon'),  176;  map,  110,  Ce. 
Beachy  Head,  naval  battle  of,  492  ;  map, 

404,  Dc. 


Beaconsfield,  Earl  of.  See  Disraeli,  Ben- 
jamin. 

Beaton,  Cardinal,  278,  288. 

Beaufort  (bu'fort),  bishop  and  cardinal, 
217-22. 

Beauforts,  the,  221-2,  227. 

Becket,  Thomas  a  (with  two  pictures),  111- 
14. 

Bede,  the  Venerable,  31-2,  27-8. 

Bedford.  John,  Duke  of,  Protector  (with 
portrait),  217-21. 

Bedford,  Jolui  Russell,  fourth  Duke  of. 
533-6. 

Belfast,  map,  358,  Da. 

Benevolences,  238. 

Beowulf  (ba'owulf  or  be'owulf ),  the  epic  of, 
30. 

Berkeley  Castle,  167  ;  map,  110,  Cc. 

Berlin  (ber'lin)  decree,  the,  576 ;  map, 
574,  Da. 

Bernicia,  the  kingdom  of,  18,  27  ;  map,  42, 
Cb. 

Bertha,  Queen  of  Kent,  28. 

Berwick,  the  storming  of,  by  Edward  I., 
152  ;  map,  110,  Cb. 

Beverages,  mediaeval,  195. 

Bible,  Wiclif's  translation,  181,  185;  Tyn- 
dale's  translation  and  its  early  revisions, 
279  ;  Luther's  translation,  254  ;  "  author- 
ized version  "  of  King  James,  343. 

Bill  of  Rights,  the,  485. 

Bishops'  Wars,  the  first  and  second,  388-9. 

Bismarck.  Otto  von,  567. 

Black  Death,  the,  161 ;  its  effects  in  Eng- 
land, 171-2. 

Black  Friars,  198. 

Black  Hole  of  Calcutta,  the,  527. 

Black  Prince,  the,  170,  173-5,  178  ;  view  of 
his  tomb,  179. 

Blake,  Admiral  Robert  (with  portrait),  429- 
31. 

Blenheim  (blen'im),  battle  of,  500 ;  map, 
574,  Db. 

Blois  (blwa),  98. 

Bloody  Assize,  the,  463. 

Boccaccio  (bokkat'cho),  164. 

Boer  (boor)  wars,  569,  617,  022-7  :  map, 
625. 

Bohemia,  religious  reformers  of,  200  :  in  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  343-4,  303-4;  map, 
.574,  Db. 

Boleyu  (bool'Tn),  Anne  (with  portrait),  268- 
73. 

Bolingbroke,  Henry  St.  John,  Viscount, 
501,  503,  515. 

Bombay  (bombay'),  528 ;  map,  526,  Be. 

Boniface.  Hil. 

Bonner,  Bishop,  296. 

Bordarii  (bor-da'rTe).  borders,  72,  73. 

Bordeaux  (bordo'),  173-4,  176,  201  ;  map, 

110,  Cd. 
Borgia  (bSr'ja)  (Alexander  VI.),  195. 
Boroughs.     See  Towns. 
"  Boroughs.  Rotten,"  592-4. 
Boscobel,  King  Charles's  oak  at,  428. 
Boston  :  the  founding  of,  384 ;  in  tlie  be- 
ginnings  of    the   American   Revolution, 


INDEX. 


651 


Bosworth,  battle  of,  242 ;  iiia/>,  110,  Cb. 

Bothvvell,  James  Hepburn,  Karl  of,  1515-10. 

Bothwell,  Bridge,  battle  of,  4(11  ;  iihij),'Mo. 

Boulogne  (boolou'),  57."):  iinij/^  110,  l)c. 

Bouvines  (booven'),  the  battle  of,  138  ;  maj), 
110,  Dc. 

Boyiie,  battle  of  the,  491 ;  //(ff^j  (Drog- 
heda),  358,  Cb. 

Braddock's  defeat,  524. 

Brandenburg  (bran'deuboorg),  the  electo- 
rate of,  344.  See,  also,  Prussia  ;  hkij/, 
574,  Da. 

Breda  (bradii'),  420  ;  map,  574,  Ca. 

Brentford,  404  ;  map,  404,  Cc. 

Brest.  17() :  map,  110,  Be. 

Bretigny  (bre-ten-ye'),  treaty  of,  174-5. 

Bretwalda  (bret'walda),  the  title,  28. 

Brewster,  William,  picture  of  residence  at 
Scrooby, 3GG. 

Brickmaking,  44,  243. 

Bright,  John,  50S-0,  GIO,  014. 

Brindley's  canal  building.  540. 

Bristol :  medieval  slave  trade,  114  ;  stormed 
by  Prince  Rupert,  4(15;  surrendered  by 
Rupert,  413  ;  map,  110,  Cc. 

Britain :  prehistoric  inhabitants,  3 ;  from 
whom  named,  4  ;  ancient  knowledge  of, 
5  ;  Cyesar's  invasion,  5  ;  Roman  Britain 
(with  map),  7-11 ;  the  Englisli  conquest 
(with  map),  15-20.  See,  also.  Great  Brit- 
ain. 

British-Boer  Wars,  the,  017,  (522-7  ;  map, 
025. 

British  Empire  in  1890  ;  area  and  popula- 
tion, 034-5  ;  majy,  end  lining. 

British  South  Africa  Company,  020. 

Britons,  the :  early  civilization,  0  ;  vnider 
the  Romans,  7-12  ;  conquest  or  expulsion 
by  the  English,  15-2(i. 

Brittany,  the  flight  of  Britons  to,  20  ;  map, 
110,  Cc. 

Bronte  (bron'te),  Charlotte,  028. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  442. 

Browiiing,  Robert,  028. 

Brownists,  332. 

Bruce,  Robert,  claimant  of  the  Scottish 
crown,  152. 

Bruce,  Robert,  King  of  Scotland,  153,  108. 

Bruges  (bru'jez),  133  ;  map,  574,  Ca. 

Brythons  (Bryth'ons),  4. 

Buckingham,  George  Villiers,  first  Duke  of, 
as  favorite  of  James  I.  (with  portrait), 
300-1,  304,  .307  ;  as  favorite  and  minister 
of  Charles  I.,  373-377  ;  failure  at  La  Ro- 
chelle,  370-7  ;  assassination,  378-9. 

Budget,  the,  012. 

Bulgaria  (boolga'ria),  map  ;  574,  Eb. 

Buuyan  ,  John,  330,  343,  442,  408  (with  por- 
trait). 

Burgesses,  74. 

Burgundian  faction  in  France,  102,  213-15. 

Burgundy  (bur'giindy)  :  a  fief  of  the 
French  crown,  ;54  ;  the  great  dominion 
of  the  dukes,  and  its  union  with  Spain, 
204-5;   map,  110,  Ed. 

Burhs,  74. 

Burke,  Edmund,  530,  543,  (with  portrait) 
553,  584. 


Burleigli  (bfir'le),  William  Cecil,  Lord,  300 ; 

(with  portrait),  319. 
Burning  at  the  stake,  the  first,  210.     See, 

also.  Persecution. 
Bvu'ns,  Robert  (with  portrait),  478,  582-3. 
Burton  Agnes,  the  manor  of  (plan),  71. 
Busaco  (boo-sa'ko),  battle   of,  579  ;    maj), 

574,  Bb. 
Bute,  Lord,  532-3. 
Byng,  Admiral,  524. 
Byron.  Lord,  583. 
Byzantine     (bizSn'teen),      Empire.        See 

Eastern  Empire. 

Cabal  (cabal'),  the,  453. 

Cabinet,  the  English,  first  shaping  of,  453, 
494 ;  development  under  Walpole,  512- 
13.     See  Ministerial  Government. 

Cabot,  John  and  Sebastian,  201. 

Cade's  I'ebellion.  231-2. 

Cadiz  expedition,  of  Di"ake,  325-0;  of 
Charles  1.,  374;  ntaj),  574,  Be. 

Caedmon  (ked'mon  or  kSd'mon),  the  poet, 
31. 

Caen  (kon),  215  ;  iiui]),  110,  Cc. 

Caesar,  Julius,  in  Britain,  5. 

Calais  (kala'),  siege  and  capture  by  Ed- 
ward III.,  171 ;  loss  by  the  English,  301  ; 
Dtap.  110,  Do. 

Calderon  (kaldaron')  de  la  Barca,  Pedro, 
343. 

Calendar,  the  correction  of  the,  522. 

Calvin,  Calvinism,  253,312,  332.  See,  also, 
Presbyterians. 

Cambridge  University,  rise  of,  150 ;  map, 
404,  Db. 

Camden,  Lord,  535-G. 

Campbell,  Colin,  Oil. 

Camperdown  (cauiperdown'),  battle  of, 
557  ;  maj),  574,  Ca. 

Camp  of  Refuge  in  the  Fens,  GO. 

Canada,  English  conquest,  520,  532  ;  rebel- 
lion (Patriot  War),  union  of  provinces, 
597  :  Fenian  raids,  ()14-15  ;  confederation 
of  the  Dominion,  (■)15;  participation  in 
Boer  War,  G27  ;  maj),   end  lining,  Ec. 

Canning,  Charles  John,  Earl,  Gil. 

Cannuig,  George,  575,  579,  (with  portrait) 
587-8. 

Caimingites,  588-91. 

Canterbury,  the  Roman  city,  9 ;  inap,  42. 
Dd. 

Canterbury,  founding  of  the  archbishopric 
of,  28. 

Canterbury  Cathedral,  transept  of  (view), 
113. 

Canterbury  Tales,  184. 

Camite,  Danish  king  of  England,  40. 

Cape  Breton,  acquisition  of,  532. 

Cape  Colony  taken  from  Holland.  555,  572  ; 
trekking  of  the  Dutch  colonists,  022 : 
maj/,  025. 

Cape  St.  Vincent,  battle  of,  550  ;  map,  574, 
Be. 

Carberry  Hill,  Mary  and  Bothwell  at,  310  ; 
map),  313. 

Carisbrooke  Castle,  King  Charles  in,  417. 

Carlisle  (kiirlil')-  99,  417, 428 ;  map,  404,  Ba. 


652 


INDEX. 


Carlovingian.     See  Carolingian. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  628. 

Carolinas,  grant  of  the,  470. 

Caroline,  Queen,  587. 

Carolingian,  or  Carlovingian,  kings,  52. 

Carr,  Robert,  Earl  of  Somerset,  357,  3G0. 

Carteret  Lord  (Earl  Granville),  515,  520. 

Carthaginian  tin  trade,  5 ;  map,  574,  Cc. 

Cartwright's  invention,  546. 

Casket  letters,  the,  315. 

Castile  (kastel'),  early  popular  institutions 
in,  133,  150  ;  map,  574,  Bb. 

Castle-building,  Norman,  65-6,  243. 

Castlereagh  (kaslra')  Viscomit,  575,  579, 
587. 

Castles,  life  in  mediaeval,  101-2. 

Catherine  de  Medici  (dama'deche),  253, 
288. 

Catherine  II.  of  Russia,  482. 

Catherine,  Princess,  of  France,  marriage  to 
Henry  V.,  216. 

Catherine.     See,  also,  Kathainne. 

Catholics,  Roman,  in  England,  under  Henry 
VIII.,  272-6;  under  Edward  VI.,  290; 
under  Mary,  296-300;  under  Elizabeth, 
308-9,  310,  319-21,  326;  under  James  I., 
352,  353-5,  367:  under  Charles  I.,  373; 
under  Cromwell,  434 ;  under  Charles  II., 
450-51,  455-8:  mider  James  II..  464-6; 
amelioration  of  laws,  the  Gordon  riots  of 
1780,  541-2  ;  given  the  elective  franchise 
in  Ireland,  555-6  ;  admission  to  the  Irish 
Parliament  refused,  558-9;  "Catholic 
emancipation ' '  in  Ireland  defeated,  55S- 
9  ;  emancipation  in  the  United  Kingdom, 
575,  589-90 :  relief  measures  in  Ireland 
(1833),  594 :  disestablishment  of  the  Irish 
church,  015-16. 

Cato  Street  conspiracy,  the,  587. 

Cavalier  Parliament,  the,  451-2. 

Cavaliers,  origin  of  the  name,  393  ;  picture, 
403.  _ 

Cawnpore  (kanpoor')  massacre  at,  611 ; 
map,  526,  Cb. 

Caxton,  William,  244. 

Cecil,  Robert,  Earl  of  Salisbury,  353,  360. 

Cecil,  Sir  William.     See  Burleigh. 

Celtic  influence  in  northei'u  England,  31. 

Celts  in  Britain  and  Europe,  4-7. 

Ceorls  (kyerlz),  21. 

Cerdic,  the  conquests  of,  17. 

Cervantes  (servan'tez)  Saavedra,  Miguel 
de,  343.^ 

Ceylon  (selon'  or  sTlon'),  taken  from  Hol- 
land, .555,  572  ;  map,  520,  Cd. 

Chalgrove  Field,  skirmish  at.  404;  man, 
104,  Cc. 

Chamberlain  (cham'berlTn),  Joseph,  621. 

Chancellor,  origin  of  the  office  and  title. 
91-2. 

Channel  Islands,  the,  136  ;  map,  110,  Cc. 

Cliansons  de  Gestes  (shanson'  deh  zhest), 
.57,  95. 

Chantries,  suppression  of,  274,  290. 

Character,  American,  as  affected  by  Eng- 
li.sh  influences,  v. 

Character,  English  national,  as  affected  by 
geographical  circumstances,  1. 


Charlemagne's  (shar'le-man)  empire,  52-3. 

Charles  I. :  visit,  while  prince,  to  Madrid, 
367 ;  early  falsity,  367-8 ;  accession, 
character,  marriage  (with  portrait),  372- 
3 ;  Buckingham's  evil  influence,  373-4 ; 
first  quarrels  with  Parliament,  373-5 ; 
rupture  with  France,  375-6  ;  forced  loan, 
376 ;  Petition  of  Right,  377-8 ;  Laud's 
influence,  379-81 ;  government  without 
Parliament,  381-88 ;  imprisonment  of 
Eliot  and  others,  382-3;  ship-money, 
385-6  ;  measures  in  Scotland,  and 
"  Bishops'  Wars,"  386-9  ;  meeting  of 
the  Long  Parliament,  3S9  ;  schemes  in 
Ireland,  392;  attempt  against  the  five 
members,  393-4  ;  approach  of  civil  war, 
394-5 ;  the  first  civil  war,  403-13 ;  nego- 
tiations with  the  Irish,  408,  413  ;  surren- 
der to  the  Scots,  413-14  ;  delivery  to  the 
English,  414-15 ;  in  the  hands  of  the 
army,  415-18  ;  sclieming  with  all  parties, 
414-17  ;  second  civil  war,  417  :  trial  and 
execution  (with  pictures),  418-19. 

Charles  II.,  assumption  of  the  royal  title, 
425  :  plans  in  Ireland,  425  ;  agreement 
with  the  Scottish  Covenanters,  425-6 ; 
invasion  of  England,  defeat  at  Dmibar, 
escape  to  France,  427-8  ;  caUed  to  the 
English  throne,  440  ;  character,  —  begin- 
ning of  reign  (svith  portrait),  448-452  :  a 
hireling  of  Louis  XIV. ,  454-6 ;  death, 
461. 

Charles  II.  of  Spain,  478. 

Charles  V.,  the  emperor,  205,  248-52,  265- 
9,  295. 

Charles  V.  of  France,  175. 

Charles  VI.  of  France,  162,  216. 

Charles  VI.  Emperor,  480. 

Charles  VII.  of  France,  216-20. 

Charles  VIII.  of  France,  his  Italian  expe- 
dition and  its  effects,  204. 

Charles  XII.  of  Sweden,  479. 

Charles  the  Bold,  of  Burgundy,  204 ;  pic- 
ture of  his  armor,  237. 

Charter  of  Forests,  151. 

Charter  of  Henry  I.,  89;  laid  before  King 
John, 138. 

Charter,  the  Great,  137-41. 

Chartists,  the.  5!  18-9,  607. 

Chatham  (chat'am)  Lord.     See  Pitt. 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  184-5. 

Cherbourg  (sher'bQrg),  176 ;  map,  110,  Cc. 

Chester,  the  Roman  city,  10 ;  map,  42,  Be. 

Chimneys,  193. 

China:  the  Opium  War,  598;  war  (1857) 
with  England.  609-10  :  war  with  Japan, 
.569  ;   map,  end  lining.  Pd. 

Chinon  (shenou'),  117  ;  man,  110,  Dd. 

Chivalry,  55. 

Church,  ancient  Celtic,  picture  of  a,  29. 

Church,  the  Early  and  Mediaeval  :  intro- 
duction of  Cliristianity  by  the  Romans. 
11  ;  extinction  by  the  English  conquest, 
19-20 ;  restoration  by  missionaries  from 
Rome  and  Ireland,  26-30 :  rise  of  the 
bishops  (popes)  of  Rome  to  sui)remacy 
over  the  western  Christian  churcli,  52  : 
origin  of  the  English  primacy  at  Canter- 


INDEX. 


653 


bury,  28 ;  organization  of  the  church  in 
England  under  the  rule  ot  Home,  SS ; 
treatment  of  the  churt'li  by  William  the 
Conqueror,  7.") ;  robbery  and  corruption 
of  the  church  by  William  Rufus,  s;;—! ; 
Cistercian  revival  of  the  I'itli  century, 
and  opening  of  the  gieat  age  of  church 
building,  "J5-6,  58;  conflict  of  Henry  II. 
with  Archbishop  Becket,  —  mischievous 
legal  independence  of  the  clergy,  111-14  ; 
great  power  of  the  jjopes  in  the  13th  cen- 
tury, lol ;  quarrel  of  King  John  with  tlie 
cliurch, — his  submission  and  vassalage 
to  the  pope,  13G-7  ;  his  support  from  tlie 
pope  agamst  liis  subjects,  141  ;  papal 
exactions  from  England  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  III.,  143 ;  decline  of  papal  author- 
ity hi  the  14th  century,  —  the  "Baby- 
lonian Captivity  "  of  the  popes  and  the 
"  Great  Schism,"  l(jl ;  discontent  wirh 
the  state  of  the  church  in  England,  —  the 
preaching  of  Wiclif  and  "The  Vision  of 
Piers  Plowman,"  17G-8 ;  the  Lollards, 
181 ;  religious  revolts  in  Bohemia  and  at 
Florence,  —  end  of  the  Great  Schism, 
206  ;  the  friars  in  England,  Franciscan 
and  Dominican,  197-i' ;  persecution  of 
the  Lollards,  20il-10,  212-13  ;  degeneracy 
of  the  English  clergy  in  the  15th  century, 
221) ;  Protestant  Reformation  movements 
in  Germany  and  elsewhere  on  the  conti- 
nent, 248-53  ;  Counter-Reformation  in 
the  Roman  chirrch,  251-2  ;  separation  of 
the  English  cluu'cli  from  Rome  by  Henry 
VIII.,  268-70  ;  reunion  with  the  Roman 
church,  —  restoration  of  papal  authority 
by  Mary,  296-1) ;  final  separation  by  Eliza- 
beth, 305-9. 
Church  of  England  (Established)  the  sepa- 
ration of  the  church  in  England  from  tlie 
Roman  church  by  Henry  VIII.,  268-76; 
the  king  as  supreme  head  of  the  church, 
271,  273-6 ;  reformation  under  Edward 
VI.,  288-90  :  composition  and  adoption  of 
the  English  Prayer  Book  and  the  Articles 
of  the  English  church,  290,  292  ;  reunion 
of  the  church  in  England  with  the  Roman 
church  by  Mary,  296-9  :  final  .separation 
by  Elizabeth,  .'')08 ;  dissatisfaction  with 
the  creed,  ritual,  and  constitution  of  the 
church,  — rise  of  Puritans.  Presbyterians, 
and  Independents.  .331-2  ;  the  oppressive 
clerical  Court  of  High  Commission.  332  ; 
King  James  I.  as  the  head  of  the  church, 
350-52 ;  oppressive  aims  of  the  ruling 
clergy,  359 :  tlie  rule  of  Laud  in  the 
church  under  Charles  I.,  379-81,  384  :  the 
Puritans  in  control  of  Parliament.  380- 
82  ;  arrest  of  Laud  and  abolition  of  the 
Court  of  High  Commission,  ;>91  :  division 
of  parties  on  church  questions,  391-2, 
394-5 ;  exclu.sion  of  liishops  from  the 
House  of  Lords,  395 ;  alliance  of  Parlia- 
ment with  the  Scots.  — promised  organi- 
zation of  the  English  church  on  the 
Presbyterian  system,  —  meeting  of  the 
Westminster  Assembly,  407  ;  growth  of 
religious  independency,  —  issue  between 


Presbyterians  and  Independents,  409-11; 
414-17  ;  execution  of  Laud,  411  ;  triumph 
of  the  Independents,  —  execution  of  tlie 
king,  —  establishment  of  the  Common- 
wealth, 418-20,  424  ;  congregational  or- 
ganization of  the  church  mider  Crom- 
well's protectorate,  435  ;  restoration  of 
episcopacy  with  tlie  restoi'ed  monarchy, 
448-51) ;  persecution  of  Presbyterians  and 
other  Nonconformists,  450-51 ;  Declara- 
tion of  Indulgence  by  Charles  I.,  454-5  ; 
the  Te.st  Act  of  Parliament,  455 ;  the 
Exclusion  Bill,  457-8  ;  contiict  of  James 
II.  with  the  church,  and  its  imrt  in  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  464-7,  484-6;  the 
Toleration  Act  and  the  Non-Jurors,  487- 
8 ;  .Jacobitism  in  the  church,  500-501  ; 
the  Methodist  revival,  516  ;  the  que.stion 
of  Catholit'  emancipation  and  the  atti- 
tude of  George  III.,  558-9,  575;  passage 
of  the  bill  for  Catholic  emancipation,  and 
partial  repeal  of  the  Test  and  Corpora- 
tion Acts,  589-90  ;  abolition  of  the  Test 
Oath  in  the  universities,  616. 

Church  of  Ireland  :  disestablishment,  615- 
16.     See,  also,  Catholics,  and  Ireland. 

Church  of  St.  Lawrence,  at  Bradford-on- 
Avon  (old  English),  picture  of,  44. 

Christianity.  See  Church,  Early  and 
Mediaeval. 

Cid,  song  of  the.  57. 

Cistercian  ((^Tster'gTans)  monasteries  and 
monks  (with  picture),  95-6. 

Citeaux  (sTto'),  95  ;  inujj,  110,  Ed. 

Cities.     See  Towns. 

Civil  service  reform,  609. 

Civil  wars  :  Stephen  and  Matilda,  99-101 ; 
the  Barons'  War,  145-7  ;  Wars  of  the 
Roses,  232-8  ;  King  and  Parliament,  403- 
17. 

Clarence,  George,  Duke  of,  236-9. 

Clarendon,  Assize  of,  119  ;  inap,  110  Cc. 

Clarendon,  Constitutions  of.  112. 

Clarendon,  Earl  of.     See  Hyde,  Edward. 

Classic  learning,  revival  of,  203. 

Claverhouse  (klav'erus),  John  Graham  of, 
Viscount  Dundee,  461,  488-9. 

Clergy,  tlie.  independence  of  common  law 
and  courts,  75.  112. 

Clive,  Robert,  witli  portrait,  527. 

Clyde  (River),  iitr/p,  42.  Ab. 

Cnut.     See  Canute. 

Coach,  hackney,  in  the  reign  of  Anne,  pic- 
ture. 502. 

Coalition  ministry,  the.  543. 

Cobden.  Richard,"  .598-9,  (;iO. 

Coeur  de  Lion  (kurdeli'on).  See  Richard 
I. 

Coffee-houses.  468,  498  ;  picture.  499. 

Coinage,  debasement  of,  280,  291  ;  restora- 
tion, 329. 

Coke,  Sir  Edward,  357. 

Colchester,  the  Roman  city,  0  ;  map,  42, 
Dd. 

Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  583. 

Colet.  John.  279. 

Colonies.  English  :  founding  of  the  Ameri- 
can, 328-9,  348,  357-8,  384-5,  451-2,  470 ; 


654 


INDEX. 


conquest  of  Jamaica,  4;37_:  conquest  of 
Nova  Scotia,  Newfoundland,  etc.,  il'J, 
501;  conquest  of  Canada,  —  French  and 
English  colonial  systems  compared,  523- 
6,  532 ;  American  revolt  and  independ- 
ence, 534-41,  543 ;  acquisition  of  Aus- 
tralia and  New  Zealand,  537  ;  conquest 
of  Cape  Colony  and  Ceylon,  555,  572  ; 
colonial  aid  to  the  Empire  in  South  Afri- 
can war,  r)27  ;  area  and  population,  631-5. 
See,  also,  India. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  202,  205,  2(30. 

Cologne  (kolon'),  154;  inap^  574,  Ca. 

Commerce  :  mediaival,  55-G,  'J2-3,  131-3, 
153-5,  173 ;  in  England  under  Lancas- 
trian kings,  220-30  ;  under  Henry  VII., 
2G0  ;  commercial  revolution  of  lOth  cen- 
tury, 253-4 ;  in  England  under  Eliza- 
beth, 329 ;  imder  the  Commonwealth, 
429-30  ;  after  the  Restoration,  409-70  ; 
protective  duties,  581-2,  588-9 ;  attain- 
ment of  commercial  freedom,  599-000. 

Common  law,  the  English,  fixed  and  imi- 
fiedby  Hem-y  II.,  118. 

Commons,  the,  and  the  House  of  Commons. 
See  Parliament. 

Commonwealth,  great  seal  of  the  (picture), 
432. 

Commonwealtli  of  England,  founding  of 
the,  424. 

Commonwealth  flag  (picture),  426. 

Communists  of  Paris,  the,  568. 

Concord,  battle  of,  539. 

Confirmatio  Cartarum  (konfermji'teo  kar- 
ta'room)  of  Edward  I.,  151-2. 

Confiscations,  the  Conqueror's,  ()4. 

Connaught  (kon'nat),  the  kingdom  of.  114- 
15  ;  map,  110,  Ab. 

Constantinople  :  mediaeval  trade,  55  ;  in  the 
13th  century,  131 ;  defence  against  the 
Turks,  164;  capture  by  the  Turks,  203. 
See,  also.  Eastern  Empire  ;  inap.  574,  Eb. 
/  Constitution  of  government,  the  English  : 
its  chief  documents :  the  Charter  of 
Henry  I.,  89  ;  Magtut  Otila.  137-41  ;  the 
Confirmatio  Carfarum  of  Edward  I., 
151-2  :  the  Petition  of  Right,  377-8  :  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act,  4(50;  the  Declara- 
tion of  Rights  and  the  Bill  of  Rights, 
484-5 ;  the  Mutiny  Act,  487  ;  the  Act  of 
Settlement,  495 ;  the  First  Reform  Bill, 
591-4  ;  the  Second  Reform  Bill,  015  ;  the 
TFird  Reform  Bill.  (;i8-19. 

Constitution  of  government,  the  EngUsh : 
its  institutions.  See  Parliament,  Mon- 
archy, Ministerial  Government. 

Continental  Congress,  the  American,  539. 

Continental  System  of  Napoleon,  the,  575- 
8. 

Conventicle  Act,  the,  450. 

Conversion  of  the  English,  26-30. 

Cook,  Captain,  explorations  of,  537. 

Copernican  sj'steni  of  astronomy,  254,  342. 

Corneille  (kBrnal')  (Fr.  pron.  kSrnay'), 
Pierle,  343. 

Com  Laws,  the,  5Sl-;5;  5S8-9,  .599-600. 

Cornwall,  the  British  inhabitants  of,  19  ; 
map,  front  lining,  Fe. 


Corporation  Act,  450,  589. 

Cortes  (kor'tez),  the  Spanish,  133,  150. 

Cort's  improvements  in  ironmaking,  546. 

Corunna  (korobn'ya),  battle  of,  579  ;  inujj. 
574,  Bb. 

Costume  of  a  gentleman  in  1721  (picture). 
512. 

Cotters,  cotarii,  72,  74. 

Cotton  famine,  the,  613-14. 

Counter- Reformation,  the,  251-2. 

Country  Partj',  the,  455-6. 

Comity,  change  of  shire  to,  74. 

County  Councils,  020,  621. 

Courts  of  law,  evolution  of  the  English, 
92,  118-19. 

Covenant,  the  first  Scottish,  31 1 . 

Covenant,  the  Scottish  National,  387-8. 

Covenant,  the  Solemn  League  and,  407, 
450. 

Covenanters,  the  Scottish :  signers  of  the 
National  Covenant,  387-8  ;  Bishops' 
Wars,  388-9 ;  league  with  the  English 
Parliament,  407 ;  engagements  with 
Charles  I.,  and  war  with  Parliament, 
415-17  ;  adoption  of  the  cause  of  Charles 
II.,  war  with  the  English  Common- 
wealth, and  subjugation,  429  ;  persecu- 
tion under  Charles  II.,  460-()l. 

Cowper  (kow'per  orkob'per),  William,  478. 

Cowton  Moor,  Battle  of  the  Standard,  100  ; 
map,  110,  Cb. 

Craft  gilds,  126,  230. 

Cranmer,  Thomas,  services  to  Henry  VIII., 
268-71  ;  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  (with 
portrait),  288-90  ;  death  at  the  stake,  299. 

Crecy  (kres'sT),  battle  of,  170-1  ;  map,  110, 
Dc. 

Crimean  (crime'an)  War,  the,  566,  608-9 ; 
map,  574,  Fb. 

Criminous  clerks,  112. 

Crompton's  invention,  540. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  first  speech  in  Parlia- 
ment, 381;  his  "Ironsides,"  and  how 
he  made  them  (with  portrait),  405  ;  ser- 
vice in  the  great  civil  war,  406-13;  his 
religious  independency,  410  ;  his  influ- 
ence in  the  remodelling  of  the  army, 
410-11  ;  made  lieutenant-general,  412- 
13  ;  intermediation  between  Parliament 
and  army,  415-17  ;  in  the  second  civil 
war,  417  ;  at  the  trial  of  the  king,  418  ,- 
campaign  in  Ireland,  425 ;  campaign  in 
Scotland,  and  victory  at  Worcester,  425- 
8  ;  Cromwellian  settlement  of  Ireland, 
429;  dissolution  of  the  Rump,  431-3; 
captain-general  and  commander-in- 
chief,  433  ;  Lord  Protector  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, 434-8  ;  foreign  wars,  437-8  ; 
death,  438  ;  the  gibbeting  of  his  remains, 
448. 

Cromwell,  Richard,  protectorate  of,  438-9. 

Cromwell  Thomas  (with  portrait),  270, 
273-7. 

Cromwellian  settlement  of  Ireland,  429. 

Cro.ssbowman,  picture  of.  170. 

Crusades,  the,  55.  85,  109,  117,  121-3,  133. 

Culloden  (ciillo'den),  battle  of,  521  ;  map, 
313. 


INDEX. 


655 


Cumberland,  the  Duke  of,  521. 
Cumbria,  !'.» ;  inap  (Stratlu-lyde),  I'J. 
Curfew  (from  cuurrc-j'nn),  TU. 
Curia  Regis  (koo'reii  ra'ges).     See  King's 

Court. 
Currency.     See  Coinage. 
Customs  duties,  regulatiouby  Edward  1., 

and  origin  of  the  name,  155. 
Cuthbert,  St.,  :U. 
Cymry  (kTni'ri),  tlie,  -t. 
Cynewulf  (kin'ewulf)  tlie  poet,  31-2. 
Cynric  (kin'ric),  the  conquests  of,  17. 

Danegeld,  the,  and  its  effects,  09. 

Danelaw,  the,  41  ;  nuip,  42,  Co. 

Danes :  attacks  and  invasions  of,  37-46  ; 
effects,  43  :  in  Ireland,  ll-i. 

Dante  (dan'te),  134,  1(;4. 

Danube  River,  11  ;  map,  574,  Eb. 

Darlington,  first  railway,  590  ;  map,  404, 
Ca. 

Darwin,  Charles,  G28. 

Dauphhi  of  France,  215. 

David  II.  (David  Bruce)  of  Scotland,  1G8, 
171,  175,  209. 

Declaration  of  Rights,  the,  484-5. 

Defender  of  the  Faith,  2(57. 

Dee  River,  19  ;  map,  42,  Be. 

Defoe,  Daniel,  498. 

Deira  (dei'ra),  the  kingdom  of,  18,  27  ; 
map,  42,  Cb. 

Delhi  (del'le)  in  the  mutiny,  Gil  ;  map, 
52G,  Bb. 

Demesne  (de-men'),  the,  70. 

Democracy,  primitive,  among  the  early 
English,  21-3  ;  its  decline,  23-6,  43,  69- 
70. 

Democratic  ideas  in  the  14tli  century,  ISO  ; 
democratic  discontent  in  the  I9th,  581 ; 
democratic  reformation  of  Parliament, 
591-4,  615,  618-19. 

Denmark,  the  old  English  home  in  (with 
map),  15-16  ;  map,  16,  Ec. 

Derby,  521 ;  map,  404,  Cb. 

Derry.     See  Londonderry. 

De  Ruyter  (dehri'ter),  Dutch  admiral,  431. 

Descartes  (dakart')i  Rene,  .342. 

Despensers  (despen'sers),  the,  166-7. 

Des  Roches  (darosh'),  Peter,  justiciar,  138. 

Dettingen(det'tTngen),  battle  of,  521 ;  map, 
574,  Ca. 

Devonshire  (dev'onslnre),  the  British  in- 
habitants of,  19 ;  mail,  front  lining.  Ge. 

Diamond  Jubilee  of  Queen  Victoria,  622. 

Dickens,  Charles  (with  portrait),  626,  (>28. 

Dispensing  power,  claims  of  James  II.,  to 
the,  464. 

Disraeli  (dizra'le  or  dizre'le),  Benjamin  : 
beginning  of  public  career.  (;07-8  :  first 
Derby-Disraeli  Ministry,  611-12  :  .second 
Derby-Disraeli  Ministry  and  Second  Re- 
form Bill,  615 ;  made  Prime  Minister 
and  Earl  of  Beaconsfield.  —  "  imperial 
policy  "  (with  portrait),  616-17  ;  death, 
f)19. 

Dissenters.     See  Nonconformists. 

Divine  right,  doctrine  of  kingship  by,  349, 
359,  372. 


Di.\on,  Canon,  ([uoted,  274-5. 

Dniester  (ne.s'ter)  River,  11  ;  ma}),  .574,  Eb. 

Dome.sday  Book,  with  facsimile  of  entries, 

72-4. 
Dominicans,  198. 
Domuiion  of  Canada,  the,  615;  fiiaj),  end 

lining. 
Douay  (dooa')<  Jesuits  at,  320  ;  map,  574, 

Ca. 
Dover,  treaty  of,  454  ;  map,  404,  Dc. 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  324-8. 
Drogheda  (dro'liedii),  Cromwell's  storming 

and  massacre  at,  425  ;  map,  358,  Cb. 
Druids,  the,  6-7. 
Drumclog     (drum-klog'),   battle    of,  461 ; 

map,  313. 
Dryden,  John,  .343,  468. 
Dublin,  425;  map,  358,  Cb. 
Dudley,    Sir    Edmund    (agent    of    Henry 

VII.),  262. 
Dudley,  Guildford,  294,  297. 
Du  Guesclin  (dugakl.au'),  Bertrand,  175. 
Dunbar    (dunbiir'),   battles    of   (in    1296), 

152  ;  (in  1651).  427  :  map,  110,  Cb. 
Dundee  (dundee')  taken  by  Montrose,  412  ; 

maj),  ',iVn. 
Dundee,    John    Graham    of    Claverhouse, 

Viscount,  4(51,  488-9. 
Dungeness   (dunjSnes'),   naval  battle   off, 

431  ;  map,  404,  Dc. 
Dmikirk,  English  acquisition  of,  437  ;  sale 

by  Charles  II.,  to  France,  451 ;  map,  574, 

Ca. 
Dunstan,  4;^ 
Duquesne,  Fort,  526. 
Durham  (dur'um)  cathedral,  view  of,  96 ; 

map,  404,  Ca. 
Dutch,  the.    See  Netherlands  and  Holland  ; 

maj),  318. 
Dutch  in  Soutli  Africa,  622^7. 
Dwellings,  Anglo,  Saxon,  43 ;  later  mediae- 
val, 191-4. 

Ealdhelm,  or  Aldhelm,  32,  44. 

Ealdormen,  22. 

Earldoms,  changed  character  of,  74. 

East  Anglia,  the  kingdom  of.  18,  28-9,  33 
map,  42,  Dc. 

East  India  Company  :  first  charter,  329 
conquests  in  the  18th  century,  .526-7 
.542-3  ;  reorganization  of  its  government 
.545 ;  commercial  monopoly  withdrawn 
595. 

Eastern  Association,  Cromwell  and  the, 
406. 

Eastern  Empire,  the,  11,  .52,  54,  134. 

East  Saxon  kingdom,  the,  17-18,  28. 

Ebbsfleet,  17  ;  map,  42,  Dd. 

Edgar,  King,  43,  46. 

Edgar  the  Atheling,  63,  67. 

Edgehill.  battle  of,  4<t4:  map,  404,  Cb. 

Edict  of  Nantes  (n.ants),  2.53;  its  revoca- 
tion, ;i46  ;   iiKi)),  .574.  Bb. 

Eduiburgh  (ed'Tnburro) :  its  cession  to  the 
Scots,  45  ;  burning  by  the  Englisli  (Henry 
VIII.),  278:  riot  hi  St.  Giles's  Church, 
387  ;  submission  to  Montrose,  412  ;  sub- 
mission to  Cromwell,  427  ;  map,  42,  Bb. 


656 


INDEX. 


Edith  (renamed  Matilda),  Queen  of  Henry 

I.,  Si),  ;)T. 

Edmer,  94. 

Edmund,  called  Ironside,  46. 

Education,  jjopular,  first  national  appro- 
priation for,  595  ;  first  teachers'  training 
schools,  607 -8  ;  national  system  of  com- 
mon schools  founded,  VA(> ;  elementary 
schools  made  free,  6'JU.  See,  also,  Learn- 
ing. 

Edward  I.,  as  prince,  144-8;  his  reign, 
148-56  ;  his  character.  148 ;  his  portrait, 
147:  his  seal,  149  ;  his  "  Model  Parlia- 
ment,"' 148-50;  his  Confirmatw  Ctir- 
tdriuii,  151-2  ;  his  subjugation  of  Wales, 
152  ;  his  wars  with  the  Scots,  152-3  ;  his 
death,  153. 

Edward  II.,  105-7. 

Edward  III.,  his  reign,  167-78;  his  war 
with  the  Scots,  168,  171  ;  his  claini  to  the 
French  crown,  169  :  his  wars  in  France, 
168-75 ;  his  relations  with  Parliament, 
173  ;  his  introduction  of  Flemish  weavers, 
173  ;  his  last  years,  176-8  ;  liis  portrait  in 
an  old  picture,  168  ;  his  descendants,  227. 

Edward  IV.  (with  portrait),  234-9. 

Edward  V.  (so  called),  the  murdered 
prince  (with  portrait),  2.39-41. 

Edward  YI.,  and  his  coimcil  (picture),  287  ; 
liis  reign,  287-94. 

Edward  the  Confessor,  46-8. 

Edward  the  Elder,  42-3. 

Edwin,  King  of  Northumbria,  28-9. 

Egbert,  King,  union  of  English  kingdoms 
under.  .33,  38. 

Egypt,  Napoleon  in,  557-8;  expulsion  of 
the  French  by  the  English,  572 ;  maji, 
end  Iming,  Ld. 

Eighteenth  century,  survey  of  general  his- 
tory, 477. 

Eilean-na-Naoimh,  29. 

Eleanor  (el'eanSr)  of  Aquitaine  (with  pic- 
ture from  her  effigy).  101.  HI.  116. 

Elbe  (elbe)  River,  .576 :  mnp.  574,  Da. 

Elective  franchise.     See  Parliament. 

Elector,  the  Great,  .344. 

Electricity,  the  Age  of,  597,  628. 

Eliot,  George,  628. 

Eliot,  Sir  John,  resistance  to  the  king,  .374, 
376,  381-2 ;  imprisonment  and  death, 
(with  portrait),  382-3. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  birth,  271,  279  ;  impris- 
onment by  Mary,  297  ;  accession,  charac- 
ter, portrait,  305-7  ;  new  reformation  of 
the  church.  306-9 ;  conduct  towards 
Mary  Stuart.  309-22  ;  foreign  affairs  in 
her  reign,  317-19,  322-8  ;  carried  in  state 
(picture),  .323 ;  Elizabethan  literature, 
3.30-1  ;  religious  oppression  and  persecu- 
tion, .319-21,  331-2;  affairs  in  Ireland. 
333-4 ;  death,  3.34. 

Elizabeth  Farnese,  479-80. 

Elizabeth  (of  Bohemia),  daughter  of  James 
I.,  362,  3(;3.  :564. 

Elizabeth  Woodville,  queen  of  Edward  IV. . 
2.36,  2.39-40. 

Ely,  Isle  of,  66  ;  nvtp,  42,  Dc. 

Emijargo  Act,  the  American,  578. 


Emperor-kings  of  Germany,  53,  131-2, 163, 

205. 

Empire,  mediaeval  revival  of  the  Roman  in 
name,  52, 53 ;  called  the  Holy  Roman  Em- 
pire, 131  ;  inider  the  Hapsburgs  (House 
of  Austria),  132, 163,  205  ;  under  Charles 
v.,  248-252. 

Empire,  the  Eastern  or  Byzantine.  See 
Eastern  Empire. 

Empson  and  Dudley,  262. 

England,  the  name,  18. 

Engles,  the  old  home  of  the  (with  map), 
15-16  ;  conquests  and  settlements  in  Brit- 
ain. 18-19. 

English  conc^uest  of  Britain,  15-20  ;  bar- 
barity of  the  conquerors,  19-21. 

English  language.     See  Language,  English. 

English  Pale,  115.  261,  333  ;  map,  358,  Cb. 

Eimiskilleners,  victory  of,  491 ;  map,  358, 
Ca. 

Eorls.  22. 

Eormine  Street.  11  '■   ma  p.  8. 

Episcopacy,  abolition  demanded,  391. 

Essex,  origin  of  the  name  of,  18  ;  map,  42, 
Dd. 

Essex,  Robert  Devereux,  second  Earl  of, 
333-4. 

Essex.  Robert  Devereux.  third  Earl  of,  com- 
mand of  parliamentary  forces,  403-4, 
406-7.409.411. 

Ethanduu  (et'handuu),  battle  of,  41  ;  map, 
42,  Bd. 

Ethelbert  (gth'elbert).  King  of  Kent,  28. 

Ethelings.  24. 

Ethelwulf  and  his  sons,  .38. 

Eugene,  of  Savoy,  Prince.  479. 

Evesham  (evz'um  or  evz'hum),  battle  of, 
174;  map,  110.  Cb. 

Exchequer,  origin  of  the  court  and  the 
name  (with  picture),  90-91. 

Exeter,  the  Roman  city,  9  ;  map,  42,  Bd. 

Exeter  Book.  the.  32. 

Exclusion  Bill,  the,  4.57-8. 

Eyre  (ar).  Governor,  614. 

Factory  laws,  the  first.  595. 

Factory  system,  the.  547.  581. 

Fairfax,  Sir  Thomas,  406,    408,    411,   413, 

417,  418.  440. 
Fairs,  mediaeval.  93. 
Falkirk  (fal'kerk).  battles  of  (of  1298).  153, 

(of  1745),  .521  :  map.  110,  Ca. 
Falkland   (fak'land),  Lucius  Gary,  Lord. 

392,  407. 
Family  Compact,  the  Bourbon.  480. 
Faroe  Islands.  37  :  map,  38. 
Farthingale,  the  wheel  (picture),  351. 
Favorites  of  Edward  II..  164-6;  of  James 

I.,  357,  .360 ;  of  Queen  Aime,  499-500. 
Fawkes,  Guy.  355. 
Ferdmand,  of  Aragon,  205,  248,  265. 
Ferrybridge,  battle  of.  2,34:  maj,.  110.  Cb. 
Feudal  system,  the.  53 ;  in  England,  67-8, 

102,  111,  120,  131,228,255. 
Fiefs,  .53. 

Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold,  the,  267. 
Fifteenth  century,  general  survey  of,  202- 

6. 


INDEX. 


657 


Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  4ol. 

Fight  at  Finnesburg,  the  song  of  the,  '.iO. 

Fisher,  Bishop  John,  "-'T.'!. 

Fitz  Peter,  Geottrey,  justiciar,  1.S7-S. 

Five  members,  attempt  of  Charles  I., 
against,  '.yj-t. 

Five-mile  Act,  the,  4r>()-51. 

Flags,  English,  Scottish,  and  Union,  pic- 
ture, '>0l :  the  Union  Jack  and  the  Irish 
flag,  pictures,  558. 

Flambard,  Ranulf,  ,S3. 

Flanders  :  a  tief  of  the  French  crowii,  54 ; 
mediieval  industries,  5(5 ;  emigrations  to 
England,  U3,  173,  329  ;  in  the  14th  cen- 
tury, 1G2-3 ;  revolt  under  Jacques  Van 
Artevelde,  KJ'J ;  absorbed  in  the  Bur- 
gundian  dominion,  204-5 ;  hi  that  of 
Spain,  248-9 ;  revolt  suppressed,  347  ; 
transferred  to  Austria,  479;  iiikjj,  110, 
Dc. 

Flemish,  —  Flemings.     See  Flanders. 

Flodden  Field,  battle  of,  2(14  ;  map,  404,  Ba. 

Florence,  131,  134,  1G4,  203,  20G ;  man, 
574,  Db. 

Florence  of  Worcester,  94. 

Florida,  transferred  from  Spain  to  England, 

Flushing,  325  ;  ma}^,  574,  Ca. 

Folk-moot,  the,  23. 

Fontenoy  (fontena'),  battle  of,  521  ;  iiiaj), 
574,  Ca. 

Food  in  medipeval  ti^ues,  194-5. 

F'ortescue  (for'tesku).  Sir  John,  on  mon- 
archy, 244. 

Forth  (River),  18  :  maj),  42,  Ba. 

Fosse  (fos)  Way,  the.  11  ;  map,  8. 

Fotheringay  Castle,  322  ;  map.  404,  Cb. 

Fountains  Abbey,  96. 

Fourteenth  century,  general  survey  of, 
101-4. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  543-4,  553  (with  por- 
trait), 574-5. 

Foyle  (River),  491  ;  map,  358,  Ca. 

France  :  anciently,  as  Gaul,  4-7  ;  Norman 
settlement  in.  47  ;  origins  'of  the  king- 
dom. —  its  feudal  system,  52-3,  54 ; 
French  dominion  of  English  kings,  109 ; 
fiefs  forfeited  by  John,  i;)5-r) ;  the  king- 
dom in  the  13th  century.  13;5 ;  in  the  14tli 
century,  —  the  Hundred  Years'  War,  102 
168-75  ;  map  at  treaty  of  Bretigny,  174 
partial  conquest  by  Henry  V..  213-16 
Joan  of  Arc's  deliverance,  217-20  :  map 
of  territory  held  by  the  English  in  1429, 
218  ;  expulsion  of  the  English.  220-21  : 
national  solidification,  204  ;  in  the  KJtli 
century.  —  religious  wars,  250.  252-3 ; 
wars  of  Louis  XH.  and  Francis  I.,  250, 
263-8 ;  quarrel  and  war  with  England 
under  Charles  I..  373,  375-7,  379,  385; 
absolutism  established  under  Richelieu, 
Mazarin,  and  Louis  XIV..  344-6,  478-9; 
wars  of  the  18th  century.  478-81.  496, 
501-2,  511.  515-16.  520-28.  5.12  ;  the  king- 
dom under  Louis  XV.  and  XVI.,  480-82  ; 
alliance  with  the  U.  S. .540-41 ;  the  Revo- 
lution, 483  ;  wars  of  the  Revolution  with 
England,  554-8  ;  Napoleonic  wars,  562-4, 


571-80  ;  restoration  of  the  Bourboris,  5(!4  ; 

revolutions  of   1830    and    1848,  and   the 

Second  Empire.  565-7  ;  P^ranco-Prussian 

War  and  Third  Republic,  567-8 ;  maps, 

110,574,  Cb. 
Francis  I.  of  France,  250,  265-8. 
Fran(;is  II.  of  France,  310. 
Franciscans.  156,  198-9. 
Franco-Prussian     (frSnk'oprush'an)    War, 

567. 
Franklin,  Benjamin.  534. 
Franks,  the,  11.  52,  169. 
Frederick  the  Great,  480-82. 
Free   cities,   Italian   and   German,  54,  56, 

131,  1(53. 
Free  companies.  1()3. 
Free  trade,  the  English  adoption  of,  600. 
Freedom  of  the  press,  590. 
Freeman,  Edward  A.,  on  Alfred  the  Great, 

42. 
Freemen,  early  English,  21-6,43,  69-70. 
Friars,  mediieval,  197-9. 
Frisian  industries,  56. 
Frisians,  15-16  ;  majf,  W. 
Frith  gilds.  126. 

Froissart  (frois'art).  Chronicles  of,  170. 
Fronde,  wars  of  the,  345. 
Froude  (frood),  James  A.,  quoted,  275,  289. 
Fulford,  ()1  ;  map,  110,  Cb. 
Fuller.  Thomas,  442. 
Furniture,  mediseval,  193. 
Fyrd  (ferd),  the,  23,  68,  120. 

Gael  (gal),  descendants  of  the,  4. 

Gainsborough,  battle  of,  406  ;  map,  404,  Cb. 

Galileo  (galTle'o),  342. 

Games,  mediaeval,  199. 

Gardiner,  Bishop,  296,  300. 

Gardiner,  Sanluel  Rawson,  quoted,  351, 427. 

Garibaldi  (garibal'di).  566. 

Garter,  the  order  of  the.  171. 

Gaskell,  Mrs.  Elizabeth,  628. 

Gaul,  inhabitants  of,  4. 

Gaunt  (gant),  John  of,  178 ;  portrait,  176. 

Gaveston.  Piers,  165-G. 

Gay,  John,  498. 

Gemot  (gemot'),  the,  22. 

Genealogy  :  of  West  Saxon  kings.  51 ;  of 
Norman  kings.  Conqueror  to  Stephen, 
108 ;  of  the  Angevin,  or  early  Planta- 
genet  kings,  130  ;  of  the  later  Plantagenet 
kings,  201  ;  of  the  royal  Houses  of  Lan- 
caster, York,  and  Tudor.  227 ;  of  Henry 
VII.  from  John  of  Gaunt,  247 ;  of  the 
Tiidor  fanuly.  304 ;  of  the  Stuart  sover- 
eigns of  Scotland  to  Mary  Stuart,  341  ; 
of  the  Stuart  sovereigns  of  Scotland  and 
England,  476  :  of  the  Hanoverian  sover- 
eigns, 606. 

Geneva  (jene'va),  tribunal  of  arbitration, 
616;  ma/>,  .574,  Cb. 

Genoa  (gen'oa),  131  ;  map,  574,  Cb. 

Geottrey  (jef'frT),  of  Anjou  (called  Planta- 
genet), 97,  100-101. 

Geottrey  of  Monmouth,  and  the  legends  of 
King  Arthur.  95.  102,  121. 

Geographical  circumstances  attecting  Eng- 
lish character,  1. 


658 


INDEX. 


Geographical  discovery  in  the  15th  century, 

effects  of,  202-3. 
George  I.,  claims  to  the  English  crown, 

495,  502-3  ;  accession,  —  character,  with 

portrait,  —  reign,  509-14. 
George  II.,  reign,  514-16,  520-28. 
George  III.  :  accession,  528  ;  character  and 

aims,  with  portrait,  531-2  ;  his  personal 

government,   532-40 :    his   failure,    541  ; 

mental    derangement,    545  ;     confirmed 

insanity,  —  regency    of    the    Prince    of 

Wales,  579  ;  death,  583. 
George  IV.  :  regency  as  Prince  of  Wales, 

579-83 ;  accession  as   king,   583 ;   reign, 

587-90^ 
Gerefa  (gera'fa),  the,  23. 
Germanic  conquest  of  Britain,  15-20. 
Germanic  invasion  of  the  Roman  Empire, 

11. 
Germanic  race  in  EiiroiJe,  4. 
Germany :  the  early   kingdom,   52-3,   54 ; 

early  literature,  57 ;  the  emperor-kings, 

53,  131-2,  1G3, 194  ;  mediaeval  free  cities, 

54,  132,  154,  103,  254;  in  the  13th  cen- 
tury, 132  ;  in  the  14th  century,  103  ;  in 
the  15th  century,  202,  205;  the  Reforma- 
tion, 249-51 ;  the  Thirty  Year.s'  War,  343- 
4,  363-4  ;  literary  awakening,  478  ;  wars 
of  the  18th  century,  478-81 ;  in  the  Napo- 
leonic wars,  5G2-4  :  the  Holy  Alliance, 
564 ;  Revolution  of  1848,  505 ;  Austro- 
Prussiau  and  Franco-Prussian  wars,  — 
unification  and  creation  of  the  German 
Empire,  567-8. 

Gesiths  (ge-seth'),  24. 

Ghent  (gent),  treaty  of,  580-81 ;  map,  574, 
Ca. 

Ghibellines  (gib'ellTn),  54,  163. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  584. 

Gibraltar  (jibral'tar),  acquired  from  Spain, 
479,  501 ;  mn]),  574,  Be. 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  328. 

Gildas,  the  history  of,  15. 

Gilds,  125,  230,  254. 

Gladstone,  William  E.  :  follower  and  suc- 
cessor of  Peel,  6(17-8;  chancellor  of  tlie 
exchequer, — budget  of  1860,  612;  first 
ministry,  615-16  :  second,  third,  and 
fourth  ministries,  —  Third  Reform  Bill, 
—  Irish  Home  Rule  Bills,  —  resignation 
and  retirement  (with  portrait),  617-21. 

Glanvil,  Ranulf,  120. 

Glasgow  (glas'go),  412  ;  maj),  313. 

Glass  in  the  Middle  Ages,  45,  193-4. 

Glatz  (glatz),  481 ;  map,   574,  Da. 

Glencoe  mas.sacre  of,  489  ;  map,  313. 

Glendower,  Owen.  208. 

Gloucester  (glos'ter)  Humphrey,  Duke  of 
(with  portrait),  217-22. 

Gloucester,  the  Roman  city,  9 ;  niaj),  42, 
Bd. 

Gneist,  R.  von,  on  Magna  Carta,  141. 

Godwin,  Earl,  46-7. 

Goethe  (ge'teh),  478. 

Goidel  (go'Tdgl),  the,  4. 

Goldsmith,  Oliver,  583. 

Gondomar,  :'64-5. 

Good  Parliament,  the,  178. 


Gordon,  General  Charles  G.,  619. 

Gothic  architecture,  development  of,  57-8, 
134. 

Goths,  11,  52. 

Gower,  John,  the  poet,  185. 

Grafton,  the  Duke  of.  537. 

Grand  Pensionary  of  Holland,  347. 

Grand  Remonstrance,  the,  392-3. 

Gravesend,  452  ;  map,  404,  Dc. 

Gray,  Thomas,  583. 

Great  Britain,  jihysical  geography  of  the 
island,  1-2  (with  map) ;  formation  of  the 
kingdom,  500.     See,  also,  Britain. 

'•  Great  Commoner,  the,"  537. 

Great  Schism  (.sis'm),  the,  161,  206. 

Greece  :  war  of  independence,  1821,  565  ; 
map),  574,  Ec. 

Gregory,  St.,  and  the  English  captives  at 
Rome,  27. 

Grenville,  George,  532-6. 

Grey,  Earl,  and  the  First  Reform  Bill, 
591-6. 

Grey,  Lady  Jane  (with  portrait),  293-7. 

Grey  Friars.     See  Franciscans. 

Greyfriars  Churchyard,  signing  the  Cove- 
nant in,  388. 

Grossete-ste  (gros'tSst),  Bishop,  198. 

Guelfs  (guelfs)  and  Ghibellines,  53,  163. 

Gunpowder,  invention  of,  164. 

Gmipowder  Plot,  the  (with  picture),  354-5. 

Gustavus  Adolphus,  344. 

Guy  Fawkess  Day,  355. 

Habeas  Corpus  (ha'beas  cSr'pus)  Act,  the, 
460. 

Hampden,  John,  leadership  in  Parliament, 
374;  resistance  to  forced  loan,  376  ;  re- 
fusal of  .ship-money,  386 ;  in  the  Long 
Parliament  (with  portrait),  391-4 ;  death, 
404-5. 

Hampton  Court  Conference,  350-1  ;  map, 
404,  Cc. 

Hangings  (wall  draperies),  mediaeval,  193. 

Hanover,  the  old  English  home  in  (with 
map),  15-16  ;  succession  of  Hanoverian 
princes  to  the  English  crown,  495,  502 ; 
their  lineage,  606  ;  separation  of  Engli.sh 
and  Hanoverian  crowns,  596 ;  Hanover 
absorbed  by  Prussia,  567  ;  map^  574,  Ca. 

Hanse  of  Cologne  in  London,  the,  .5(!. 

Hanse  Towns,  or  Hanseatic  League,  132; 
their  "  Steelyard  "  in  London,  1.54  ;  their 
power  in  the  14th  century,  163  ;  aid  to 
Edward  IV.,  2.37  ;  decline,  254. 

Hapsburgs  (House  of  Austria),  the,  132, 
163,  20.-;. 

Harfleur  (arfler'),  siege  by  Henry  V.,  213; 
iitaj),  110,  Dc. 

Hargreave's  (har'greave)  invention,  546. 

Harley,  Robert,  Earl  of  Oxford,  501. 

Harold,  the  last  of  the  Saxon  kings,  47-8  ; 
his  defeat  and  death.  ()l-3. 

Harold  Hardrada's  invasion,  61  -2. 

Hastings  (hast'ings),  or  Senlac,  battle  of, 
62-3  ;   map,  42.  Dd. 

Hastings,  Lord,  execution  of,  239^40. 

Hastings,  Warren,  542-3. 

Havelock  (h«^v'ehlok),  Henry,  611. 


INDEX. 


659 


?Iawkins,  Sir  John,  o'li,  oJG. 

Hebrides  Islands,  37  ;  map,  38. 

Hedgeley  Moor,  battle  of,  "235;  map,  110, 
Cb, 

Helmet,  cylindrical,  I'ith  century  ^picture), 
l-J-_'. 

Hengist  and  Horsa,  conquests  of,  17. 

Henrietta  Maria,  wife  of  Charles  I.,  373, 
37.").  403. 

Hertford  County,  400  ;  iiutp,  front  lining, 
He. 

Henry  I.  (called  Beauclerk) :  liis  father's 
injunction,  77  ;  his  accession,  S8  ;  contest 
with  Robert,  and  acquisition  of  Nor- 
mandy, 88-0  ;  character.  SO :  charter, 
80 ;  reign,  00-8  ;  organizat  ion  of  public 
business,  *.X)-2  ;  schemes  for  the  succes- 
sion, 07  ;  picture  of  his  effigy,  88  ;  drown- 
ing of  his  son,  07. 

Henry  II.  :  accession  in  Normandy,  Maine, 
and  Anjou,  acquisition  of  Aquitaine,  and 
accession  in  England,  KH  :  dominion  in 
France,  100;  restoration  of  order,  110- 
11;  conflict  with  Becket,  111-114:  par- 
tial conquest  of  Ireland,  114-1."<;  trou- 
ble with  wife  and  sons  (with  pictiu-e  from 
his  effigy),  110-17  :  legal  reforms,  118- 
120. 

Henry  III.,  reign,  142-8;  character,  143; 
portrait,  143 ;  conflict  with  the  barons, 
143-8 ;  death,  148. 

Henry  lY.  (of  Lancaster),  banislnnent  and 
return  to  take  the  crown,  1S3;  parlia- 
mentary title,  207  ;  constitutional  reign, 
207,  210-11 :  persecution  of  Lollards,  200- 
10  ;  relations  with  his  son,  "  Prince  Hal," 
211  ;  portrait.  208. 

Henry  lY.  (of  Navarre),  253,  344-5. 

Henry  V.  :  as  Prince  of  Wales,  211  :  char- 
acter (with  portrait),  212  :  partial  con- 
quest of  France.  213-10  :  death.  21(!. 

Henry  YI.  :  infancy  and  minority,  21()-20  ; 
marriage  to  Margaret  of  Anjou,  221  ; 
weakness  and  losses  of  mind,  231  -2  :  two 
discrownings.  and  death,  232-8;  portrait, 
231. 

Henry  YII.,  lineage,  241  :  acquisition  of 
the  crown.  241-2:  cliaracter  and  reign 
(with  portrait),  25(;-()2 :  treatment  of 
"pretenders,"  257-0;  foreign  and  com- 
mercial policy,  250-(!l  ;  dealing  with  Ire- 
land, 2G1-2  ;  extortions,  262. 

Henry  YIII..  character.  202-3:  portrait, 
263  ;  foreign  undertakings,  2()3-S  ;  em- 
ployment of  Wol.sey.  204-0  :  tract  against 
Luther,  207  ;  divorce  of  Katharine  of 
Aragon,  2G0-71  ;  separation  of  tlie  Cliurch 
of  England  from  Rome,  271-(! :  later 
marriages,  271,  273,  27(5-7,  270:  suppres- 
sion of  the  monasteries,  273-5 ;  death, 
278-9. 

Henry  Beauclerk.    See  Henry  I. 

Henry  of  Huntingdon,  04. 

Henry,  Prince  (son  of  James  I.),  300. 

Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Lord,  442. 

Hereward,  66. 

Herleva,  50. 

Herri ck,  Robert,  442, 


Herzegovinia  (hertsegove'na),  568 ;  iikij), 
574,  Db. 

He.vham,  battle  of,  2:>5  :   i,i<i/t.  110,  Cb. 

High  Connuission,  Court  of,  332,  3.57 ;  use 
of  by  Charles  1.,  383-4;  abolition  by 
Long  Parliament,  301  ;  revival  by  James 
11..  404 

Higlilanders,  roused  for  King  Charles  I.  by 
.Montrose,  412. 

Hill,  Rowland,  508. 

Hlaford  (lord),  23. 

Hoard,  the  royal,  88. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  3.30,  342,  442. 

Hohenzollern  (lioent.sol'lern)  family,  344. 

Holland.     See  Netherlands. 

Holmby  House,  415. 

Holy  Alliance,  the,  .564-5. 

Holy  Roman  Empire.  See  Empire,  medi- 
icval  revival. 

Home  Rule  party,  the  Irish,  618-21. 

Homildon  Hill,  battle  of,  208;  map,  llO, 
Cb. 

Houfleur  (onfler'),  07  ;  map,  110,  Dc. 

Hooker,  Richard  (with  portrait),  330. 

Host,  tlie  (sacramental),  1(M>. 

Hotspur,  Henry  Percy,. called,  208. 

House-carls,  62. 

Household  suffrage.  615. 

Houses  of  Parliament,  the,  picture,  613. 

Howard,  Katharine,  277. 

Hubertsburg,  treaty  of,  481. 

Huguenot  refugees  in  England,  4()0. 

Huguenots,  the,  252-3,  345,  377,  378-9. 

Humber  River,  18  :  hkijj.  42,  Cc. 

Humble  Petition  and  Advice,  the,  436. 

Hundred,  the,  22. 

Himdred-moats.  22.  68,  83.  92. 

Hundred  Years'  War  in  France,  l)egini  by 
Edward  III..  102,  l()8-76 ;  renewed  by 
Henry  Y.,  213-16;  ended  under  Henry 
YI.,  217-21. 

Hrmgary  :  wars  with  the  Turks,  164,  206 ; 
crown  acquired  by  the  Austrian  house, 
347:  misuccessful  revolt  (1848),  505;  for- 
mation of  Austro-Hungarian  Empire,  568 ; 
)i)ap.  574,  Db. 

Huntingdon  Comity,  406  ;  map,  front  lin- 
ing, Hd. 

Hus  (bus),  John,  206. 

Huskisson  (lius'kTssSn).  William,  587-90. 

Huxley,  Thomas  H.,  028. 

Hy,  or  lona,  the  monastery  of,  29  ;  map, 
110,  Ba. 

Hyde.  Edward,  leadership  among  moderate 
men  in  the  Long  Parliament,  302  :  made 
Earl  of  Clarendon  and  lord  cliancellor 
at  the  Restoration,  410;  impeachment 
and  flight,  —  history  of  the  Civil  War, 
452-3. 

Hyder  Ali,  .542. 

Icknield  Street,  10 ;  mop,  8. 

Icelantl,  37  :  map,  .38. 

Impeachment :  first  exerci.se  of  the  power, 

178;  revival  of,  305-6. 
"  Imperial  policy,"  ()1()-17. 
Inclosure  of  commons  and  open  fields,  280, 

291. 


66o 


INDEX. 


Independence,  the  American  Declaration 
of,  5311. 

Independents :  of  the  Elizabethan  age, 
331-"i  ;  migration  to  New  England,  366 ; 
of  the  great  civil  war.  4(»'J-1(»,  -414-16. 

India  :  Mongol  conquest,  253,  348  ;  discov- 
ery of  the  ocean  route  for  European 
trade,  202,  253-4 ;  English  conquests  in 
the  18th  century,  526-7,  542-3;  Pitfs 
India  Bill,  545;  Sepoy  mutiny,  610-11; 
government  vested  in  the  crown,  (111 ; 
Queen  Victoria  proclaimed  Empress  of 
India,  617  ;  map,  526. 

Indulgence  :  Declaration  of,  by  Charles  II., 
454-5;  declaration  of,  by  James  II., 
465-6. 

Infanta,  the  Spanish,  356. 

Inkerman  (Inkerman'),  battle  of,  GOO ; 
map,  574,  Fb. 

Inquest,  the  Norman  procedure  of,  119. 

Inquisition,  the,  206. 

Instrument  of  government,  the,  434-G. 

Interdict,  England  under,  137. 

lona  (eo'na),  the  monastery  of,  2it ;  map, 
110,  Ba. 

Ireland  :  origin  of  the  Celtic  inhabitants, 
4 ;  never  reached  by  the  Roman  arms, 
8;  original  home  of  the  Scots.  11-12; 
conversion  to  Christianity  by  St.  Patrick. 
26-7  ;  Irish  missionaries  in  England  and 
their  influence,  29-31 ;  incursions  of  the 
vikings  or  Danes,  37-38 ;  Danish  settle- 
ments, 114;  beginning  of  English  con- 
quest by  Strongbow  and  Henry  II.,  115; 
Irish  measures  of  Henry  VII.,  —the 
Poynings  Laws,  261-2  ;  further  conquest 
by  Henry  VIII.,  and  his  assumption  of 
the  title  of  King  of  Ireland,  277  ;  treat- 
ment under  Queen  Elizabeth,  333  ;  com- 
pleted subjugation,  —  treatment  under 
James  I.. — the  Plantation  of  Ulster 
(with  map),  358-9  ;  under  Sir  Thomas 
Wentworth,  385  ;  insurrection  of  1641, 
392  ;  negotiations  of  Charles  I.  witli  the 
Irish  Catholics,  408,  413  ;  negotiations  of 
Charles  II.  with  the  Irish,  — Cromwell's 
campaign  in  Ireland,  425  ;  the  Cromwel- 
lian  Settlement,  429  :  representation  in 
the  Barebones  Parliament,  433  ;  decree 
of  union  with  England  under  Cromwell, 
4.35;  Ireland  iinder  James  II.,  489  ;  Irish 
rising  for  James,  against  William  of 
Orange,  and  the  Orange  conquest  of  the 
island,  490-91  :  subsequent  oppressions, 
491-2;  relief  measures  of  1780-82, —  in- 
dependence of  the  Irifsh  Parliament,  542  ; 
movement  of  the  United  Irishmen,  —  at- 
tempted inva.sion  from  France,  —  civil 
war  between  Orangemen  and  Catholics, 
555-6 ;  parliamentary  nnion  with  Eng- 
land, 558-9  :  Daniel  O'Connell  and  Cath- 
olic emancipation,  589-90  ;  fm-ther  relief 
to  Catholics,  594 ;  the  great  famine,  — 
agitation  for  repeal  of  t)ie  union.  (iOO- 
601;  the  "Young  Ireland"  party, — 
opening  of  tlie  "land  (piestion,"  601; 
rebellion  of  1848,  607  :  the  Fenian  move- 
ment,  614-15 ;   disestablishment  of  the 


Irish  church  and  amendment  of  land 
laws,  615-16  ;  rise  of  the  Land  League 
and  the  Home  Rule  party,  617-18 ;  de- 
feat of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Home  Rule  bills, 
619-21  ;  passage  of  a  new  Land  Act 
(1896),  and  a  Local  Self -Government  Act 
(1898),  621  ;  map,  358. 

Ireton  (ire'ton),  Henry,  his  Heads  of  Pro- 
posals, 416. 

Iron-making,  improvements  m,  546. 

Ironsides,  Cromwell's.  405,  411. 

Isabella  of  Cast'ile.  205,  248. 

Isabella,  queen  of  Edward  TI.,  16.5-7,  169. 

Italy  :  the  Gothic  and  Lombard  kingdoms, 
—  rise  of  the  popes  at  Rome, — the  re- 
vived Roman  empire,  52-3 ;  free  cities, 
54,  131, 163  ;  mediaeval  commerce,  56  ;  in 
the  13th  century,  134 ;  in  the  14th  cen- 
tury, —  Guelfs  and  Ghibellines,  —  open- 
ing of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  163-4 ;  in 
the  15th  century,  —  flourishing  of  art,  — 
less  of  liberty,  —  invasion  of  Charles 
VIII.,  203-4;  in  the  16th  century,— 
Spanish  subjugation,  250 ;  in  the  17tli 
century,  Spanish  and  Austrian  blight, 
.347  ;  in  the  wars  of  the  18th  century, 
478-81 ;  campaigns  of  Napoleon,  483 ; 
under  Napoleon.  562-3 ;  under  the  Holy 
Alliance,  564;  revolutions  of  1820,  1830, 
and  1848,  565  ;  unification  and  formation 
of  the  kingdom  of  Italy,  566 ;  map,  574, 
Db. 

Jacobin  clubs.  483. 

Jacobite  rebellion  of  1715,510  ;  of  1745, 521. 

Jacobites,  tlie,  486-7. 

Jamaica  :  English  conquest,  437  ;  insurrec- 
tion of  blacks,  614 ;  map,  end  lining.  Ge. 

James  L  of  England  and  VI.  of  Scotland  : 
birth,  315  :  coronation  in  Scotland,  316  ; 
acce.ssion  in  England,  349 ;  character  (with 
portrait).  349-50  ;  dealings  with  Puritans 
and  Catholics,  350-55  ;  conflicts  with  Par- 
liament, 352-65 ;  favorites,  357,  360-61  ; 
dealings  with  Spain,  356,  361-2,  367 ; 
death,  368. 

.James  I.  of  Scotland,  captivity  in  England, 
209. 

James  II.  of  England,  as  Duke  of  York, 
453,  455,  458,  461  ;  attempt  to  exclude 
from  throne,  457-8 ;  accession,  —  charac- 
ter (with  portrait).  461-2  ;  reign,  —  con- 
flict with  Parliament  and  church,  —  lo.ss 
of  the  crown,  462-7  ;  attempts  and  fail- 
ure in  Ireland,  490-91. 

James  IV.  of  Scotland,  260.  264. 

James  V.  of  Scotland.  264,  278. 

Jameson  raid,  the,  ()2(). 

Japan  :  war  with  China,  569  ;  map,  end  lin- 
ing, Rd. 

Jeanne  d'Arc  (zliiin  dark').  See  Joan  of 
Arc. 

•Jeffreys.  Judge  George.  463. 

Jenkins's  Ear,  War  of.  480.  515-16. 

Jeru.salem.  85  ;  ma]).  574,  Fc. 

.Je.suits  (jez'uTtz) :  founding  of  tlie  order, 
251-2  ;  mission  and  sufferings  in  Eng- 
land, 319-21. 


INDEX. 


66 1 


Jews,  inediit'val  treatment ;  massacre  of 
1190  ill  England,  VH>. 

"  Jingoism,"  GIU-IT. 

Joan  of  Arc,  217-2(». 

Joliaiiiiesburg,  (IJ.'i-C) ;  iiKfj),  025. 

John,  King:  in  Ireland,  117;  rebellion 
against  his  father,  117  :  accession  to  the 
throne,  murder  of  Prince  Arthur,  loss  of 
Normandj'  and  tlie  Angevin  fiefs,  V.V>-Vi ; 
quarrel  with  the  church  and  submission 
to  the  pope,  136-7  ;  concession  of  Magna 
Carta,  137-41  ;  last  strife  with  his  sub- 
jects, and  death,  141-2. 

John,  King  of  France,  captivity  of,  174-."). 

John  of  Gaunt  :  conuuand  in  France,  — 
portrait,  —  political  aims,  170-178  ;  his 
descendants,  227 . 

Jonson,  Ben,  330,  343. 

Junius.  Letters  of,  odS. 

Junto,  the,  494. 

Jury  trial,  119. 

Justiciar  (justTsh'Tar),  the  office  of,  91. 

Jutes  :  their  old  home  (with  map),  15-16  ; 
their  conquests,  17,  19  ;  inap,  16. 

Jutish  "long-ship,"  picture  of,  17. 

Kant,  Immaiiuel,  478. 

Katharine  of  Aragon,  portrait,  259 ;  mar- 
riage to  Prince  Arthur,  260  ;  marriage  to 
Henry  VIII.,  2G3 ;  divorce,  269-70; 
death,  273 ;  her  daughter  Mary,  279, 
293-301. 

Keats,  John,  583. 

Kelts.     See  Celts. 

Keiiilwortli,  1(57  ;  map,  110,  Cb. 

Kent,  the  kingdom  of,  17,  28,  29,  33 ;  map, 
42,  Dd. 

Kepler,  342. 

Ket's  rebellion,  291 . 

Khartum  (kartoom'),  619 ;  map,  end  lin- 
ing. Le. 

Killiecrankie  (kilikran'kl),  battle  of, 
488-9 ;  map,  313. 

Kilsyth  (kTlsyth'),  battle  of,  412  ;  map,  313. 

King's  Bench,  Court  of,  .357. 

King's  Court,  its  origin,  92  ;  development 
by  Henry  II.,  118. 

Khig's  deathbed,  picture  of  a  Norman,  83. 

Kingship,  original  character  of,  among  the 
English,  22.     See  Monarchy. 

Kingsley,  Charles,  628. 

Knighthood,  55. 

Kno.v.  John,  311-12. 

Kymry  (kym'ry),  the,  4. 

Lagos  (la'gos),  naval  battle  of,  527  ;  map, 

.')74,  Be. 
La  Hogue  (la  hog'),  naval  battle  of,  493  ; 

maji,  574,  Ca. 
Lamb,  Charles,  584. 
Lancashire,  258  ;  map,  front  lining,  Gd. 
Lancaster,  Earl  Thomas  of.  165-6. 
Lancaster,  the  House  of,  its  lineage,  227  ; 

its  attainment   of    the    crown,    18;i;    its 

rivals,  221  ;  its  younger  branches,  221-2  ; 

its  conflict  with  the  House  of  York.  223, 

2:51-8. 
Land  League,  the  Irish,  618. 


Land-lords  and  land-leca  men,  23. 

Landowning  interest,  oppressive  domhia- 
tiou  of,.")81-3:  ending  of  the  domination, 
591-4,  599-600. 

Land  (question,  the  Irish,  601,  616,  617-18, 
621. 

Lanfranc.  Archbishop,  75,  83. 

Langhuul,  William,  the  poet,  178,  185. 

Langside,  battle  of,  :'>l(i ;   maj),  313. 

Langtoii,  Stephen,  archbishop,  137,  139. 

Language,  the  Engli.sh  :  Norman  banish- 
ment from  court,  95  ;  restored  to  literary 
use,  184;  required  in  the  courts,  185. 

Languedo<'  (lougedSk'),  174;  nuip,  110,  De. 

La  Roclielle  (lii  ro.shell'),  revolt  of,  376-7, 
378-9;  iiKijt,  574,  Bb. 

Latimer,  persecution  of,  299. 

Latten,  193. 

Laud  (lawd),  William,  influence  with 
Charles  I.  (with  portrait),  380;  tyranny 
as  primate,  384-5 ;  measm-es  in  Scotland, 
38(;-7  ;  arrest  for  high  treason,  391 ;  at- 
tainder and  execution,  411. 

Lauderdale  (law'derdal).  Earl  of,  453,  4G1. 

Law.  common.     See  Common  law. 

Law,  English,  the  upbuilding  of,  by  Henry 
II.,  118-20. 

Law,  first  treatise  on  English,  120. 

Law,  St.  Edward's,  118. 

Lawrence,  Henry,  (ill. 

Lawrence,  John,  611. 

Learning :  in  the  dark  ages  (Europe),  56- 
7,  (Ireland),  26-7,  (northern  England), 30- 
31;  extinction  by  the  Danes,  38-9,  114; 
in  the  13tli  century  (Europe),  134,  (Eng- 
land), 156 ;  15tli  century  revival  in 
Europe,  192 ;  backwardness  in  England, 
229  :  the  new  learning  in  England,  279. 

Leibnitz  (lipnits'),  Gottfried  Wilhehu,  342. 

Leicester  (le.s'ter),  Robert  Dudley,  Eiirl  of, 
309,  314,  325. 

Leinster  (ITn'ster  or  len'ster),  the  kingdom 
of,  114-15  ;  mai),  110,  Bb. 

Leslie  (les'lTe),  David,  427. 

Les.sing,  Gotthold  E.,  478. 

Levellers,  the,  416. 

Leven,  Alexander  Leslie,  Earl  of,  408. 

Lewes  (lii'Ts),  battle  of,  145 :  map,  110, 
Cc. 

Lexington.  l)attle  of ,  53!l. 

Leyden  (li'den).  3(56;  i/i(i/>,  318. 

Liberal  Unionists,  the,  620-21. 

Life  in  early  England,  43-5 ;  in  mediaeval 
England.  19(;-205. 

Limerick  (ITm'erTck),  treaty  of,  491-2 ; 
map,  358,  Bb. 

Limoges  (lemozli'),  124,  175;  map,  110, 
Dd. 

Lincoln,  the  Roman  city,  9  ;  map,  42,  Cc. 

Lincolnshire,  406  :  majj,  front  lining,  Hd. 

Lineage.     See  Genealogy. 

Lingard,  John,  quoted,  299. 

Lionel  (li'onel),  Duke  of  Clarence,  201,207, 
221,  227. 

Liquors,  spirituous,  in  mediieval  times, 
195. 

Literature,  English  :  the  earliest,  30-33, 
39,  42  ;  disappearance  from  the  11th  un- 


662 


INDEX. 


til  the  14th  century,  !J4-5 ;  in  Chaucer's 
time,  18-4-5;  in  the  I'lth  century,  229, 
244 ;  in  the  age  of  Ehzabeth  and  James 
I.,  330-31  ;  in  the  Restoration  period, 
4t)8-9,  477-8  ;  in  tlie  reign  of  Anne,  498  ; 
in  the  reign  of  George  III.,  583-4 ;  in  the 
Victorian  age,  G27-8. 

Literature  of  Western  Europe  :  mediaeval, 
57  ;  the  Italian  renaissance,  1G4,  203  ;  the 
IGth  century,  254 ;  the  golden  age,  343 ; 
the  ISth  century,  477-8. 

Liverpool  Ministry,  the,  579. 

Liverpool  Railway,  5it0  ;  map,  404,  Bb. 

Livery  and  maintenance,  228-9,  257. 

Lly\velyn  (looel'in),  Prince  of  Wales,  208. 

Lochleven  (lochle'ven)  Castle,  310 ;  map, 

Locke,  John,  342.  468,  (with  portrait) 
469. 

Locomotive  "  Rocket,"  Stephenson's,  pic- 
ture, 591 . 

Lollards,  the,  181,  209-10,  212-13,  229. 

Lombards,  52  ;  ni(q),  574,  Cb. 

London :  the  Roman  city,  9 ;  in  the  13th 
century  (drawing  by  Matthew  Paris), 
142  ;  the  Great  Fire,  453  ;  map,  42,  Dc. 

Londonderry,  siege  of,  490-91  ;  mup,  358, 
Ca. 

Long  Parliament,  the,  389-418. 

Lord,  origin  of  the  word.  23. 

Lord  of  the  Manor.  24. 

Louis  Napoleon,  565-8,  608,  611. 

Louis,  Prince,  of  France,  invasion  of  Eng- 
land by.  141-2. 

Louisburg,  capture  and  relinquishment  of, 
522  ;  recapture.  526. 

Louisiana,  transferred  from  France  to 
Spain,  532. 

Lucknow.  relief  of,  611 ;  mui),  526,  Cb. 

Luneville  (lunavel'),  peace  at,  571  ;  map, 
.574,  Cb. 

Lords,  House  of.     See  Parliament. 

Lords  of  the  Congregation,  311-12,  314. 

Lostwithiel,  the  surrender  at,  409 ;  map, 
4f)4,  Ac. 

Lothian  ceded  to  the  Scots.  45. 

Louis  IX.  of  France  (St.  Louis),  133,  145. 

Louis  XI.  of  France,  204. 

Louis  XII.  of  France,  250,  265. 

Louis  XIII.,  .345. 

Louis  XIV.  of  France,  character  and  reign. 
.345-6  :  dealings  with  Charles  II.  of  Eng- 
land, 451,  453-4:  last  years,  478-9,  490, 
492-6. 

Luther,  Martin,  249-51.  2.54,  267. 

Lutzen  (loot'sen),  battle  of.  314  ;  map,  574, 
Da. 

Lyme  Regis  (lyme  re'gis),  462  ;  map,  404, 
Be. 

Macaulay  (makaw'lT),  Lord  (with  portrait), 

627.  (128. 
Macdonald,  Flora,  522. 
Madras  (madras'),  .522  ;  map,  526,  Co. 
Madrid  (madrid'),  Prince  Charles  at,  .367  ; 

iiKtp,  .574,  Bb. 
Magenta  (magen'ta),  battle  of,  .566 ;  map, 

574,  Db. 


Magna  Carta  (niag'na  car'ta) :  the  winning 
of  (with  facsimile  extract).  137-41 ;  con- 
firmation by  Edward  I.,  151-2. 

Maid  of  Orleans,  the  (with  picture  of 
statue),  217-20. 

Mail,  hood  of  chain,  12th  century  (picture), 

Maine,  in  the  dominion  of  Henry  II.,  109  ; 

its  loss  by  John,  136  ;  map,  110,  Cc. 
Maintenance,  228-9. 
Maitland,  F.  W.,  quoted,  119. 
Majuba  Hill,  battle  of.  624 ;  map,  625. 
Malcolm,  King  of  Scotland,  67,  86. 
Malebranche  (miilbronsh'),  Nicolas,  .342. 
Malta   (mal'ta),   taken  from  the  French, 

571 ;  map,  574,  Dc. 
Maltolt,  or  Maltote,  155. 
Man,  Isle  of,  the  inhabitants,  4  ;  map,  404, 

Aa. 
Manchester,  Edward  Montagu,  .second  Earl 

of,  406,  409,  411. 
Manchester,  railway  at,  590;  ///«;>,  404,  Bb. 
Manor-house,  the  mediae val  (with  picture), 

191-3. 
Manors,  24,  70-72  ;  plan  of  the  divisions  of 

an  old  English  manor,  71. 
Mantes  (mont),  77  ;  map,  110,  Dc. 
Manufactures,  English  :  mediseval,  45,  93, 

155,  173,  243 ;  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  329  ; 

improvement  by  Huguenot  ref  ugees,*469  ; 

indu.strial  revolution,  545-7,  581. 
Map,  Walter,  120. 
March,  Edmund   Mortimer,  Earl  of,  201, 

207,  212.  221. 
Margaret  of  Anjou  (with  a  picture),  220-1, 

231 -S. 
Margaret  of  Burgundy,  258. 
Margaret,  Scottish  queen  and  saint,  67,  86, 

89. 
Margaret  Tudor,  260. 
Maria  Theresa,  480-81. 
Marie  Antoinette  (miiree'  ontwanet'),  483. 
Markets,  mediaeval,  93. 
Marlborough  (mawl'bro),  the  Duchess  of, 

499-500. 
Marlborough,    Jolui    Churchill,   Duke    of, 

479,  (with  portrait)  493,  499-.500. 
Marston  Moor,  battle  of,  408  ;   map,  404, 

Cb. 
Martyrdom.     See  Persecution,  religious. 
Mary  I.  (Mary  Tudor)  (witli  portrait),  279, 

293-301. 
Mary  II.,  Queen  :  as  heiress  to  the  crown, 

—  marriage  to  the  Prince  of  Orange,  458 ; 

accession  jointly  with  her  husband,  484 ; 

death,  494. 
Mary,  Duchess  of  Burgundy,  204-5,  248. 
Mary  of  Guise,  queen-regent  of  Scotland, 

278,  .311-12. 
Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of  Scots,  birth.  278 ; 

English  wooing.  278,  288  ;  in  France,  288, 

310-12 ;    claims  to   the   English   crown, 

309-10;    character  (with  portrait),  310- 
'  11  :  in   Scotland,   312-16  ;    imprisonment 

in  England,  and  execution.  316-22  ;   ef- 
fects of  her  execution.  .322-3,  .325. 
Mary  Tudor  (daughter  of  Henry  VII.),  265, 

293. 


INDEX. 


663 


Maryland,  granted  to  Lord  Baltimore,  470. 

Mashani,  Mr.s..  fiOO. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  charter  of  the  Governor 
and  Company  of,  1384-5. 

Matilda  (or  Maud),  (lueen  of  William  I., 
47,  77. 

Matilda,  queen  of  Henry  I.,  8'J. 

Matilda  (the  enipress).  daughter  of  Henry 
1..  Vt7-l(il. 

Maximilian,  the  emperor,  205,  248,  2G7. 

Mayriower,  the  voyage  of  the.  3(!('i. 

Mazarin  (mazaren'j.  Cardinal.  '.'A'>-i>. 

Mead,  i;t5. 

Meagher  (nia'er).  Thomas  Francis,  G07. 

Mechanic  invention,  tlie  epoch  of,  545-7. 

Medieval  author  at  work  (picture  from  an 
old  MS.),  121. 

Mediaeval  epoch,  ending  of,  202-3. 

Mediaeval  friars,  it3. 

Mediaeval  life  in  l5nglaud,  190-199. 

Mediaeval  roads,  195. 

Mediaeval  schools,  learning,  and  literature. 
See  Learning,  and  Literature. 

Mediaeval  towns  and  their  trade,  74,  92-3, 
125-G.     See.  also,  Hanse  Towns. 

Medicis  (med'echees),  the,  203. 

Medway,  burning  ships  in,  452;  map,  404, 
Dc. 

Melbourne  (mel'bfirn),  Lord.  590-8. 

Mellichope,  manor-house  at  (picture),  192. 

Mendicant  friars,  197-9. 

Merchant  Adventurers,  173. 

Merchant  companies,  230. 

Merchant  gilds.  120.  230. 

Mercia  (mer'shla).  the  kingdom  of,  18,  29, 
33  ;  map,  42,  Cc. 

Merton  College,  Oxford,  view  of,  155. 

Methodism,  the  rise  of.  516. 

Middle  Saxons.  17-18. 

Middlesex,  origin  of  the  name  of,  18  ;  map, 
42,  Cd. 

Milan  (mi'lan)  decree,  the,  577 ;  map, 
574,  Cb. 

Milton,  John.  330.  343,  409,  424,  438,  (with 
portrait)  442,  468. 

Ministerial  government :  the  Cabal,  —  first 
semblance  of  a  cabinet  of  ministers,  4.33  ; 
actual  beginning  of  party  ministerial  gov- 
ernment. —  tlie  Jmito,  493::4 ;  insignifi- 
cance of  Queen  Anne,  49G-7  ;  epoch  of 
political  parties,  497-8  ;  Walpole"8  prac- 
tical creation  of  prime  ministry  and  Cabi- 
net, 512-]_3;  helplessness  of  George  I.  in 
the  Iiand.s  of  his  ministers.  509-10 ;  ris- 
ing influence  of  public  opinion.  524  ;  pro- 
gress of  ministerial  government  checked 
by  George  III..  .531-2  :  tlie  king  as  his  own 
prime  mini.ster.  537-40  :  his  failure,  —  the 
last  attempt  at  royal  government,  541  : 
the  last  dismissal  of  a  ministry  by  royal 
command,  in  opposition  to  the  will  of 
Parliament,  596, 

Ministry  of  all  the  Talents,  the,  575. 
Minorca  (minor'ca),  479.  501.  524;   map, 

574.  Cc. 
Minorites,  198. 

Minstrel.sy,  mediaeval,  57,  191,  19G. 
Miracle  plays,  beginning  of,  102. 


Mississippi  Sclieme,  the,  511. 

Mitchell,  John,  607. 

Modern  era,  its  beginnings  in  Europe,  203, 
248  ;  in  England,  255. 

Mohammedan  conquests,  54-5. 

Molii-re  (molear'),  Jean  Baptiste,  343. 

Monarchy,  the  English :  origin,  limited 
heredity  and  elective  character  from  the 
beginning,  22  ;  monarchical  creation  of 
orders  of  nobility,  24-5  ;  rise  to  supremacy 
of  tlie  West  Saxon  kings.  3.'. ;  transient 
Danish  conquestof  the  crown, 46  ;  election 
(of  Harold)  to  the  kingship  from  outside 
the  royal  family.  4S  ;  invalid  claim  of  the 
Duke  of  Normandy  to  the  crown.  48,  .59- 
60  ;  his  attainment  of  it  by  concjuest,  60- 
64 ;  P3nglish  adoption  of  the  Norman 
kings,  82,  88;  charter  of  Henry  I.,  89- 
90 ;  the  question  of  succession  to  the 
crown  on  the  death  of  Henry  I.. — Ste- 
phen's election.  98-99  :  election  of  Henry 
II.,  101  ;  election  of  John.  135;  the  Great 
Charter  extorted  from  King  John.  137- 
41  ;  restraints  put  on  Henry  III.,  144-7  ; 
beginnings  of  a  representative  Parlia- 
ment, 146-51  ;  Coiifirinatio  Cariarum  of 
Edward  I..  151-2;  deposition  of  Edward 
II.  and  parliamentary  bestowal  of  the 
crown  on  Edward  III.,  167  ;  forced  abdi- 
cation of  Richard  II..  and  parliamentary 
bestowal  of  the  crown  on  Henry  IV.,  183, 
207  :  deference  of  King  Henry  IV.  to 
Parliament,  210-11  ;  period  of  factious 
king-making,  —  decline  of  the  popular 
spirit.  —  Wars  of  the  Roses.  221-3,  228- 
38;  usurpation  of  Richard  III.,  239-42; 
overthrow  and  death  of  Richard,  —  ac- 
cession of  Henry  VII.,  242  ;  weakness  of 
the  hereditary  claim  of  Henry  VII.  to  the 
throne.  241  ;  readiness  of  the  comitry  for  a 
revival  of  arbitrary  kingship,  242-3,  255- 
7  ;  hardening  of  despotism  under  Henry 
VIII. .  —  subjugation  of  the  clnirch  to  the 
king,  2(V.I-79  :  a.ssumption  of  the  title  of 
king  of  Ireland  by  Henry  VIII..  277  :  suc- 
cession to  the  crown  fixea  uy  the  king's 
will,  authorized  by  Parliament,  287,  293  ; 
accession  of  Mary  Tudor,  the  first  female 
sovereign,  2'.I4~5 ;  monarchical  dictator- 
ship in  religion  under  the  Tudors,  275-6, 
305 ;  question  of  right  to  the  crowii  be- 
tween p]lizabeth  and  Marj'  Stuart,  309- 
10  :  union  of  the  crowns  of  England  and 
Scotland  by  James  I.,  and  his  weakening 
of  English  reverence  for  royalty.  349-.50  ; 
his  conflicts  with  Parliament.  352-3,  355- 
6,  359.  361,  364-5;  assertion  of  the  doc- 
trhie  of  king.ship  by  divine  right,  359-60  ; 
conflicts  of  Charles  I.  with  Parliament, 
37.3-4,  377-8.  :',8l-2,  .388-95:  unconstitu- 
tional acts  of  Charles  I.,  376.  .382-3,  385- 
(i ;  his  submissions  to'.the  growing  power 
of  Parliament,  377-8,  389-91,  395;  the 
great  civil  war  between  King  and  Parlia- 
ment, —  execution  of  the  king,  —  over- 
throw of  the  monarchy,  394-5,  403-20 ; 
restoration  of  the  monarchy,  4.39-40.  448 ; 
new  relaxation  of  checks  on  the  crown, 


664 


INDEX. 


451 ;  recovery  of  the  disposition  in  Parlia- 
ment to  restrain  the  crown,  452  ;  failure 
of  attempts  to  exclude  James  11.  from 
the  succession  to  Charles  II.,  —  accession 
of  James  II..  457-01 :  conflicts  of  James 
II.  with  both  Parliament  and  the  church, 
and  his  expulsion  from  the  throne,  404- 
7  ;  bestowal  of  the  crowii  by  Parliament 
on  his  daughter,  Mary,  and  her  husband, 
William  of  Orange,  subject  to  constitu- 
tional restrictions  in  a  Bill  of  Rights, 
484-5 ;  beginning  of  party  ministerial 
government,  493-4 :  Act  of  Settlement, 
conveying  the  crown  to  the  House  of  Han- 
over, 495 ;  weakening  of  royalty  under 
Queen  Aime,  —  the  sovereign  slipping  into 
the  background  of  politics,  497 ;  rise  of 
political  parties,  497-8  :  further  weaken- 
ing of  royalty  under  George  I.,  509-10; 
establishment  of  the  cabinet  and  minis- 
terial government  by  Walpole,  512-13 ; 
progress  in  the  ministerial  system  checked 
by  George  III.,  531-2  :  his  failure  in  the 
last  attempt  at  dictatorial  kingship  in 
.  Eii2;land.  •541  :  final  establishment  of  the 
ministerial  system  of  government,  with 
sole  responsibility  to  Parliament,  59(3. 

Monasteries :  of  the  Cistercians,  95-0 ; 
mediaeval  hospitality  of,  197  :  suppression 
by  Henry  VIII.  and  Edward  YI.,  273-5, 
290  :  destruction  in  Scotland,  312. 

Monk  (mvink),  General  George,  in  Scot- 
land, 429  :  in  naval  command,  431  ;  ac- 
tion in  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy 
(with  portrait),  439-40. 

Monks,  mediaeval,  197. 

Monmouth,  the  Duke  of  :  proposed  for  the 
throne,  458  ;  rebellion,  defeat,  and  death, 
402-3. 

Monopolies,  royal,  333,  305. 

Montfort,  Simon  de :  the  Baron's  War, 
143-7;  his  parliament  (1265),  146;  his 
death,  147  ;  also,  198. 

Montenegro  (montana'gro),  war  with 
Turkey,  508  ;  map,  574,  Eb. 

Montrose  (mSntrose'),  James  Graham,  Mar- 
quis of,  raising  the  Highlanders  for 
Charles  I.  (with  portrait),  411-13;  re- 
newed attempt  for  Charles  II.,  betrayal 
and  death,  426. 

Moore,  Sir  John,  .579. 

Moors  m  Spain,  54,  57,  133,  205. 

Moot,  the,  22-3. 

More,  Sir  Thomas  (with  portrait),  270,  272- 
3,  279. 

Morris,  William,  628. 

Mortimer.  Roger,  166-7. 

Mortimer's  Cross,  battle  of,  234 ,  map,  110, 
Cb. 

Moscow  (mos'ko).  Napoleon  at,  564  ;  map, 
back  lining.  Lc. 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  quoted,  327. 

Munster  (mun'ster),  the  kingdom  of,  114- 
15;  maj),  110,  Ab. 

Murray,  James  Stuart,  Earl  of,  312-14,  316- 
17. 

Music,  mediitval,  199  ;  in  the  18th  century, 
478. 


Mutiny  Act.  the,  487. 
Mutiny  in  the  English  fleet,  557. 
Mutiny  of  the  Sepoys,  610-11. 
Mysore  (mysore'),  542  ;  map,  526,  Be. 
Mysteries,  230. 

Nantes  (nSnts),  edict  of,  253  ;  repeal,  346  ; 
mop,  574,  Bb. 

Napoleon  Bonaparte :  his  rise  to  power, 
483,  555,  557-8 ;  his  wars,  his  imiierial 
coronation,  and  his  fall,  502-4,  571-80. 

Napoleon  III.     See  Louis  Napoleon. 

Naseby,  battle  of,  412-13  ;  map,  404,  Cb. 

Natal  (natal'),  622  :  map,  025. 

Navigation  Act  of  1051,  430 :  of  1063  and 
1072,  109-70. 

Nelson,  Lord,  556,  558  (with  portrait), 
572-5. 

Netherlands,  the  :  early  industry  and 
trade,  .56,  132-3 ;  absorbed  in  the  Bur- 
gundian  dominion,  102-3  ;  early  schools, 
103  ;  under  Spanish  rule,  — revolt  and 
long  struggle,  2.50,  252,  318,  32.5  ;  inde- 
pendence of  the  United  Provinces  of  the 
north  (the  Dutch  provinces), — submis- 
sion to  Spain  of  the  southern  (Flemish  or 
Belgian)  provinces,  346-7  ;  war  of  the 
United  Provinces  (called  Holland)  with 
the  English  Commonwealth,  430-31 ; 
wars  with  England,  —  loss  of  New  Neth- 
erlands, 10(35-7  and  1072-4.  451-2,  4.54-6 ; 
resistance  to  Louis  XIV..  346,  454,  478-9, 
492  ;  Spanish  Netherlands  ceded  to  Aus- 
tria, 479 ;  subjection  to  revolutionary 
France, — loss  of  colonies,  5.55,  572;  a 
Napoleonic  kingdom,  503 :  rmion  and 
separation  of  Holland  and  Belgium,  565. 
See,  also,  Flanders. 

Nevilles,  the,  222,  227. 

Nevill's  Cross.battle  of ,  171  ;  map.  110,  Cb. 

Newburn,  battle  of,  389  ;  map,  404,  Ca. 

Newbury,  first  and  second  battles  of.  406- 
7,  4<J9  :«/<'//»,  404,  Cc. 

Newcastle,  Thomas  Pelham,  Duke  of,  520, 
525. 

Newcastle,  William  Cavendish,  Marquis  of, 
406,  408-9. 

New  England  :  beginning  of  the  settlement. 
360  ;  Puritan  emigration  to,  384-5. 

New  Forest,  the,  7(),  87  :  map,  43,  Cd. 

Newfomidland  (nii'fondland),  479,  501, 
015  ;  mail,  end  lining.  He. 

New  learning,  the,  279. 

Newmarket,  415,  4.59  ;  map,  404,  Db. 

New  model  army,  the,  410-11. 

Newspapers,  the  beginnings  of  news  report- 
ing, 4()7-8. 

Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  342  (with  portrait), 
408. 

Newton  Butler,  battle  of,  491 ;  map,  358, 
Ca. 

New  York,  conquest  from  the  Dutch, 
451-3,  470. 

New  Zealand,  added  to  the  British  Empire, 
5.37  ;  participation  in  the  Boer  War,  627  ; 
Ilia}),  end  lining.  Ah. 

Nibelungenlied  (ne'belungSnled)  construc- 
tion of  the,  57. 


INDEX. 


665 


Nicholson,  John,  Gil. 

Nile,  battle  of,  558  ;  map,  5()4,  Fc. 

Nineteenth  century,  survey  of  general  his- 
tory, 5()l-70. 

Nobility,  the  official  character  of  the  Eng- 
lish, 150-51. 

Nonconformists  :  the  expulsion  from  pul- 
pits and  colleges,  450  ;  refusal  to  read 
James  II,'S  Declaration  of  Indulgence, 
4()t) ;  oppressions  lightened  by  Walpole, 
514  ;  admission  to  the  Universities,  (ilfi. 

Non-Jurors,  the,  488. 

Norfolk,  origin  of  the  name  of,  18  ;  inai), 
4-',  Dc. 

Norfolk,  Thomas  Howard,  4th  Duke  of, 
e.xecution  of,  'Ml . 

Norman  Conquest,  50-77. 

Normau-English  nation,  the  fusing  of  the, 
82-102. 

Norman  influence  on  English  civilization, 
100. 

Norman  kings,  lineage  of  the,  108. 

Norman  vessel,  11th  century  (picture),  (51. 

Normandy  :  Duchy  founded  by  Northman, 
47  ;  a  fief  of  the  French  crown,  51 ;  united 
with  England  under  William  the  Con- 
queror, 50-0(5 ;  separation  and  reunion, 
82,  84-G  ;  second  separation  and  reunion, 
88  ;  third,  100-101  ;  final  separation,  13G  ; 
inap,  110,  Dc. 

North,  Lord  (with  portrait),  537-41,  543^. 

"  North  Briton,  the,"  533. 

Northampton,  battle  of,  233 ;  map,  110, 
Cb. 

Northmen,  expeditions  of  the,  37-8 ;  map, 
38 ;  settlement  in  Normandy,  47.  See, 
also,  Danes. 

Northumberland  :  early  English  culture  in, 
30-32  ;  its  extinction  by  the  Danes,  38-0  ; 
wasted  by  the  Conqueror,  G(» ;  Scottish 
forays  into,  G7,  8G,  99  ;  map,  front  lining. 
He. 

Northumberland,  John  Dudley,  Duke  of, 
292-5. 

Northumbria  or  Northumberland,  the  king- 
dom of,  IS,  28-9,  33 ;  map,  42,  Cb. 

Nottingham,  403 ;  map,  404,  Cb. 

Nova  Scotia,  acquired  from  France,  479, 
501 ;  map,  end  lining,  Gc. 

Gates,  Titus  (with  picture),  456-7. 

O'Brien,  William  Smitli,  607. 

O'Briens  of  Munster,  115. 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  589,  (with  portrait)  GOO- 

GOl. 
O'Neils  of  Ulster,  the,  115,  333. 
Opium  War,  the,  598. 
Orange  Free  State,  622-3,  627  :  huip,  625. 
Orange,  William  of.     See  William  III. 
Orangemen,  5.5(). 
Ordeals,  120. 
Orderic  Vitalis,  94. 
Orders  in  Council,  .'575-8. 
Orkney  Islands,  37  ;  map,  38. 
Orleans,  delivered  by  Joan  of  Arc,  218-9  : 

map,  110,  Dd. 
Oswald.  King,  29. 
Oswy,  King,  29. 


Oudenarde  (oo'dSniird),  battle  of,  500  ;  map, 
574,  Ca. 

Outlanders  of  the  Transvaal,  625-7. 

O.xford  :  tir.st  lectures  at,  102  :  the  univer- 
sity in  the  13th  century,  156 ;  headquar- 
ters of  Charles  I.,  404,  414;  map,  110, 
Cc. 

O.vford,  the  Provisions  of,  143-4. 

Painting.     See  Art. 

Palatine  Elector,  Frederick,  343-4,  362, 
3(;3-4  ;  map,  574,  Cb. 

Pale,  the  English,  in  Ireland,  115;  inal>, 
3.58,  Cb. 

Palestine  Crusades,  55 ;  King  Richard  in, 
123  ;   map,  574,  Fc. 

Palmerston  (piim'erston).  Lord,  598,  G08- 
14. 

Papal.     See  Church,  Early  and  Mediaeval. 

Pardoners,  1!K!. 

Paris,  Congress  of  (1856),  609;  map,  110. 
Dc. 

Paris,  Matthew  ;  his  history,  1.56  ;  drawing 
of  London  in  the  13th  centur}',  142. 

Paris,  treaty  of  (17(;3),  481. 

Parish,  the,  24. 

Parish  Councils,  621. 

Parliament  (p'ar'lTment),  evolution  of  the 
English :  begiimings  of  a  representative 
system  in  the  local  "  folk-moots,"  22-3; 
the  Witenagemot  not  a  folk-moot,  26 ;  it 
becomes  under  William  the  Conqueror  an 
assembh^  of  the  tenants-in-chief  of  the 
crown,  75  ;  its  name  changed  to  The  Great 
Council,  92  ;  influence  of  tlie  jury  system 
on  the  extension  of  the  representative 
system,  120,  125  ;  the  flrst  representative 
national  council,  1.37-8 ;  provision  in 
IMagna  Carta  against  taxation  without 
consent  of  the  Council.  141 ;  adoption  of 
the  name  Parliament  for  the  Great  Coun- 
cil, 144:  first  representation  of  the  Com- 
mons in  Parliament  by  knights  of  tlie 
shire,  14(') ;  first  representation  of  towais, 
in  tlie  Parliament  of  Simon  de  Montford, 
146 ;  unsettled  make-up  of  Parliament 
until  the  "  Model  Parliament "  of  Edward 
I.,  148-9  ;  significance  and  importance  of 
the  imion  of  country  and  towu  in  the 
represented  ''Connnons"  or  '•  Tliird  Es- 
tate "  of  England,  official  character  given 
to  the  English  nobility  by  tlie  Peeraije 
of  Parliament,  149-51  ;  importance  of 
the  confirmation  of  Magna  Carta  by  Ed- 
ward I..  151-2  ;  division  of  Parliament 
into  the  House  of  Commons  and  House  of 
Lords, — growing  boldness  of  the  Com- 
mons, 173  ;  first  exercise  of  the  power  to 
impeach  ministers,  178 ;  parliamentary 
bestowal  of  tlie  crown  on  Henry  IV., 
183.207;  strengtliening  of  the  Commons 
under  Henry  IV.,  210-11  ;  steps  toward  se- 
curing parliamentary  freedom  of  speech, 
211  ;  decline  of  popular  spirit  and  limita- 
tion of  the  parliamentary  franchi.se,  228- 
31  ;  national  apatliy  during  the  Wars  of 
the  Ro.ses.  237  :  practical  (lestruction  of 
the  old  nobility,  and  loss  of  representative 


666 


INDEX. 


character  in  both  Houses  of  Parliament, 
'243 ;  Parliament  becoming  an  instrument 
to  be  used  by  the  Tudor  sovereigns,  255- 
G ;  submissiveness  of  Parliament  to  the 
crown  under  Henry  YIIL,  Edward  VI., 
Mary,  and  Elizabeth.  270-71,  275-0,  290, 
2'JG,  298,  308  ;  influence  of  religious  feel- 
ing in  rewakeniug  a  political  spirit,  332- 
3  ;  resistance  of  Parliament  to  the  regal 
pretensions  of  James  I.,  352-3,  355-6, 
359,  3G1,  3G4-(;:  conflicts  of  Charles  I. 
with  his  first  and  second  Parliaments, 
373-5  ;  the  forcing  of  royal  assent  to  the 
Petition  of  Right,  377-8 ;  Charles's  gov- 
ernment without  Parliament.  382-8 ; 
meeting  of  the  '"  Long  Parliament "'  and 
its  constitutional  enactments.  389-91 ; 
attitude  of  a  Puritan  majorit}'  in  the  Com- 
mons, leading  to  war,  394-5  ;  king  and 
Parliament  at  war,  403-13  ;  Presbj-terians 
and  Independents  and  Parliament  and 
army  at  strife,  409-11,  411-17  :  "Pride's 
purge."'  reducing  the  Long  Parliament  to 
"the  Rump," — trial  and  execution  of 
the  king,  418-20 ;  government  of  the 
Commonwealth  by  the  Rump.  424-30 ; 
Cromwell's  dissolution  of  the  Rinnp, 
431-3;  the  Barebones  Parliament,  433-4; 
Parliaments  of  the  Protectorate,  434-7  ; 
restoration  of  the  Rump  by  the  army, 
439  ;  restoration  of  the  Long  Parliament 
by  General  Monk.  440 :  the  Convention 
Parliament  of  IGGO  and  its  restoration  of 
the  monarchy,  440.  448-j> ;  the  Cavalier 
Parliament,  449-35  ;  rise  of  the  Country 
Party,  455-G ;  evolution  of  Whig  and 
Tory  parties,  458-9  ;  Parliament  and  King 
James  II.,  4G4-() ;  the  parliamentary  revo- 
lution of  1G88,  giving  the  crown  to  Wil- 
liam and  Mary,  subject  to  the  Bill  of 
Rights,  484-5  :  parliamentary  settlement 
of  the  succession  to  the  crown.  495  :  be- 
ginning of  party  ministerial  government 
and  the  epoch  of  political  parties,  493-4, 
49G-8  ;  supremacy  given  to  Parliament  by 
the  helplessness  of  George  I.,  509-10; 
parliamentary  corruption.  514,  520.  531- 
2 ;  recovery  of  roval  influence  in  Parlia- 
ment by  George  III.,  531-2.537-8;  fail- 
ure of  the  last  attempt  at  dictatorial  king- 
ship. 541  :  oppressive  domination  of  the 
landowning  interest  in  Parliament.  581- 
3 ;  falsity  of  the  representation  of  tlie 
people  in  the  House  of  Comriions,  591-3  ; 
passage  of  the  First  Reform  Bill.  — oppo- 
sition of  the  Lords,  593-4  ;  last  dismissal 
of  a  ministry  by  the  king  without  a  vote 
of  tlie  Commons.  59G ;  the  Second  Re- 
form of  Parliament,  015 ;  the  Third  Re- 
form, G18-19. 

Parnell  (piir'ngll),  Charles  Stuart,  018. 

Parties,  political :  rise  of  a  semi -political 
religious  party  in  the  14tli  century,  —  the 
Lollards.  17i">-Sl  :  the  semi-political  par- 
ties of  Puritanism  and  religious  Inde- 
I)endencv.  in  tlie  reigns  of  Elizabeth  and 
the  firstStnarts,  331-2.  :579-81,  389  ;  Puri- 
tani.sm  divided  on  cluu'ch  questions,  391- 


3,  394-5 ;  semi-political  religious  parties 
in  the  civil  war  and  during  the  Common- 
wealth and  Protectorate,  403-4,  4(^^)9-11, 
414-17.  424;  similar  parties  at  the  Re- 
storation, 448-51 ;  rise  of  the  Country 
Party,  455-<)  ;  formation  of  the  parties  of 
"Whigs"  and  ••Tories,"  458-9;  begin- 
ning of  party  ministerial  government, 
493-4 ;  the  epoch  of  distinctly  political 
parties,  497-8 ;  the  long  supremacy  of 
the  Whigs.  510;  the  new  Tory  party  of 
George  III.,  532  ;  division  of  the  Tories, 
—  Canningites,  587-90 ;  reconstructed 
parties  with  new  names,  —  Conservative 
and  Liberal,  instead  of  Tory  and  Whig, 
595-6;  Chartists,  598-9  ;  second  division 
of  the  Tories,  —  Peelites.  599-(;01 ;  G07-8  ; 
Irish  Home  Rule  party,  G18-21  ;  Liberal 
Unionists.  020-21. 

Pascal.  Blaise.  343. 

Patrick,  St..  in  Ireland,  20. 

Peace  Congress,  the,  570. 

Peasants  revolt  in  1381,  the,  179-81. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  earlj'  i)olitical  career, 
588-90:  leader  of  advanced  Tories  (with 
portrait),  595-G ;  abolition  of  the  Corn 
Laws,  599-000 ;  close  of  ministry,  tiOl  ; 
leader  of  an  independent  party,  —  death, 
607-8. 

Peelites,  the,  G07-8. 

Peerage,  official  character  of  the  English, 
150-51. 

Pelhams  (pel'aniz),  the,  520. 

Peninsular  War.  the,  .578-9. 

Penn,  Admiral  Sir  William.  430.  4.37-8. 

Pennsylvania  granted  to  William  Penn, 
470. 

Penny  postage,  598. 

Perceval,  Spencer,  575.  579. 

Percies.  the.  208.  212. 

Persecutions,  religious:  of  Lollards,  181, 
209-10,  212-13;  under  Henry  VIII., 
272-3,  27G  ;  under  Edward  VI.,  292  ;  un- 
der Mary,  298-300 ;  under  Elizabeth, 
320-21.  3.31-2  :  of  Nonconformists  under 
Charles  II..  450-51.  455  ;  of  Catholics  for 
the  so-called  PojHsh  Plot,  457. 

Perth,  capture  of,  by  Cromwell,  427  ;  map, 
313. 

Peter  the  Great  of  Russia,  479. 

Peterborough.  94;  map.  110,  Cb. 

Petition  of  Right.  377-8. 

Petrarch  (pe'trark),  1G4. 

Pevensey  (peven'sey),  G2  ;  map,  42,  Dd. 

Philip  of  Burgmidy,  205. 

Philip  II.  of  Spain,  252-3,  (with  portrait) 
29G-300,  317-28. 

Philip  V.  of  Spain.  479. 

Philip  Augustus,  of  France,  133,  135,  138. 

Philiphaugh,  battle  of,  413  ;  map.  313. 

Philosophy,  modem,  the  beginnings  of, 
342-3. 

Phnenician  (fenish'an)  tin  trade,  5;  map, 
.574.  Fc. 

Physical  geography  of  Great  Britain,  1-2  ; 
inn]i,  2. 

Picts  and  Scots,  7, 11,  15  ;  iiW]>.  19. 

Piers  Plowman,  the  Vision  of,  178. 


INDEX. 


667 


Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  the,  274. 

Pilgrimages,  mediaeval.  1 '.•(!. 

Pilgrim  Fatliers  of  New  England,  '3',i'2,  30(5. 

Pillory,  the  (pietnre),  4.")7._ 

Pinkie  Cleugh  (pTn'kie  flu),  battle  of,  288  ; 
map,  313. 

Piracy  in  the  Kith  century,  323-4. 

Pitt,  William,  the  elder,  beghining  of  his 
career.  51.'),  .VJO  ;  his  gi'eat  administra- 
tion, with  portrait,  .")24-28 ;  defense  of 
the  American  colonies,  5;>5-7  ;  made  earl 
of  Chatliam,  ."■)3l»  ;  death,  54;5. 

Pitt.  William,  the  younger,  first  ministry, 
with  portrait,  r)43-5,  r)53-'J  ;  second  min- 
istry, .")73-7r). 

Plagues,  KJl,  171-2,  4.')3. 

Plantagenet  (plSntag'enet),  origin  of  the 
name,  il7. 

Plantagenet  kings,  lineage  of  the  early, 
130  ;  of  tlie  later,  201. 

Plassey  (plas'T),  battle  of,  527  ;  map,  52G, 
Cb. 

Plymouth  (plTm'utli).  settlement  of,  300. 

Poetry.     See  Literature. 

Poitiers  (pwatia'),  battle  of,  174 ;  map, 
110,  Dd.      _ 

Poitou  (pwatoo'),  in  the  dominion  of  Henry 
II.,  lO'J:  map,  110,  Cd. 

Poland,  1G4,  206,  253,  347,  480,  482 ;  map, 
574,  Ea. 

Pole,  Reginald,  276,  298,  300-1. 

Political  corruption,  456.  41)2,  514-15,  520, 
531. 

Pomfret,  death  of  Richard  II.  at,  208; 
map,  110,  Cb. 

Ponthieu  (pon'thieu),  175,  map,  174. 

Poor  laws,  beginning  of  English,  320-30. 

Poor  priests.  'Wiclif's,  17S.  181. 

Popes.     See  Church,  Early  and  Mediaeval. 

Popisli  Plot,  the,  45(;-8. 

Portland  Ministr}\  tlie.  575,  579. 

Portsmouth  (ports'muth),  .379 ;  map,  404, 
Cc. 

Portuguesa  discovery  and  trade,  202,  253-4, 
348.'^ 

Postage,  penny,  598. 

Postal  sy.stem,  the  beginnings  of  a,  467. 

Post-nati.  the,  3.55-6. 

Post-office  savings  banks,  612. 

Powick  Bridge,  fight  at,  404 ;  7nap,  404, 
Bb. 

Poynings  Laws,  262,  542. 

Pragmatic  Sanction  of  Charles  VI.,  480. 

Prayer  Book,  the  Englisli,  2iM;),  308. 

Prehistoric  inhabitants,  3. 

Premier.     See  Prime  Minister. 

Presbjlerian  church  system.  :'.32. 

Presbyterians  :  rise,  .'532  :  in  tlie  Long  Par- 
liament, —  conflict  with  Independents 
and  army,  410-11,  414-18  :  partial  exclu- 
sion from  parliamentary  suffrage  under 
the  Protectorate,  434  ;  in  tlie  Parliament 
of  the  Restoration,  440  ;  treatment  at  the 
Restoration,  449-51  See,  also.  Covenan- 
ters, Scottish. 

Press,  freedom  of  the,  5.3.3-4,  .5:^.8.  590. 

Preston,  battle  of.  417  :  maj/,  404,  Bb. 

Preston  Pans,  battle  of,  521  ;  map,  313. 


Pretender,  the  :  (called  James  III.),  502-3, 
510  ;  Charles  Edward,  the  Young,  521-2. 

Pride's  Purge,  418. 

Prime  Ministry,  the  English,  created  by 
Walpole,  512-13. 

Princes,  the  nnirdered,  239-41. 

Printing  :  effects  of  the  invention,  202  ;  in- 
troduction in  England,  244. 

Protective  duties,  581-2,  (;(I0. 

Protector  of  the  Commonwealth,  Oliver 
Cromwell,  434. 

Protectorate  of  Cromwell,  the,  4134-8. 

Protectorates,  British,  634-5. 

Protectors  of  the  Realm,  tlie  Duke  of  Bed- 
ford, 217  :  the  Duke  of  York,  232  ;  the 
Duke  of  Gloucester,  239  ;  the  Duke  of 
Somerset,  288. 

Protestant  Reformation,  249-53. 

Prussia  :  the  rise,  344  ;  made  a  kingdom, 
481  ;  under  Frederick  the  Great,  480-82, 
522-28,  5:;2  ;  overthrow  by  Napoleon  and 
reconstruction,  563  ;  leadership  in  unifi- 
cation of  Germany,  567-8  ;   map,  574,  Da. 

Pry  line  (prTn),  William,  384. 

Pulteney  (pult'iiT),  William.  515. 

Puritans,  Puritanism :  rise  under  Eliza- 
beth, 331-2  ;  under  James  I.,  3.50-51  ; 
confiict  with  Charles  I.,  379-84,  389 ; 
emigration  to  New  England,  384-5  ;  divi- 
sions of  party.  391-2,  394-5,  4(^)9-18 :  Pur- 
itans of  the  Commonwealth  and  Protec- 
torate, 44(^)-41  ;  Puritan  dress  (picture), 
441  ;  Puritanism  after  the  Restoration, 
467. 

Purveyance,  197. 

Pym  (pym),  John,  374 ;  portrait,  375  :  in 
the  Long  Parliament,  391-2,  394  ;  death, 
407. 

PjTenees  (pir'enez),  treaty  of  the,  .345-6. 

Pytheas  (pyth'eas),  voyage  of,  to  Britain,  5. 

Pyx, the,  100. 

Quebec,  capture  of,  526  ;  map,  end  lining, 

Gc. 
Quiberou  (kebroii')   Bay.  naval  battle  of, 

528  ;  map,  574,  Bb. 

Racine  (raseen'),  Jean  Baptiste,  .343. 

Railways :  the  first,  590 :  Stephenson's 
locomotive  "  Rocket,"  picture,  591. 

Raleigh  (raw'lT),  Sir  Walter,  254,  326,  328, 
.3.53,  (with  portrait),  :;62-3. 

Ramillies  (rameye'),  battle  of,  500;  01  ap, 
574,  Ca. 

Rand,  tlie  gold  fields  of  the,  625  ;  map,  625. 

Ranke  (riiii'keli),  Leopold  von,  quoted,  300. 

Rastadt  (rJistat').  treaty  of,  479. 

Reade,  Charles.  628. 

Re  (ra).  Isle  of,  Buckingham's  expedition 
to,  376-7  ;   map,  574,  Bb. 

Red  King,  the.     See  William  II. 

Reeve,  the.  23. 

Reform  Bill,  the  First,  591-4;  the  Second, 
615  ;  the  Third,  618-19. 

Reformation,  the  Protestant :  on  the  Con- 
tinent, 206,  249-53;  in  Phigland,  271  :'.  ; 
275,  288-90,  292,  306-9.  331-2;  in  Scot- 
laud,  311-14. 


668 


INDEX. 


Regicides,  execution  of  the,  448. 
Reign  of  Terror,  tlie,  483. 
Renaissance,  the.  1G4,  "JO'i-o,  279,  342. 
Repeal  movement,  the  Irish,  GOO-601. 
Representation.     See  Parliament. 
Republicanism    among     the    Roundheads, 

409-10,  416. 
Restoration  of  the  monarchy  in  IGGO,  440, 

448. 
Retainers,  228-9. 
Revolution  of  1G88,  the  English,  4G7,  484- 

93. 
Revolutions,    European,    of    1820-30    and 

1848,  5G5. 
Revolution,   the    French,   482-3 ;    English 

attitude  towards,  ')')'.i—i. 
Rlieims  (rlmz),  Joan  of  Arc  at,  219  ;  map, 

110,  Ec. 
Rhodes,  Cecil,  G26. 
Rliodesia,  626  ;  ?««/>,  625. 
Richard  I.  (called   Coeur   de  Lion),  strife 

witli  his  brothers  and  his  father,  117  ;  his 

character,  his  government,  his  crusade, 

his  captivity,  his  death,  121-4  ;  his  effigy, 

123. 
Richard  II.,  and  the  peasant  revolt,  178- 

81  ;  and  the  ducal   factions,  181-2 ;    his 

change  in  conduct,  182-3  ;  his  deposition, 

183;  his  death,  208. 
Richard  III.,  as  Duke  of  Gloucester,  239; 

as  usurper  of  the  crown  (with  portrait), 

239-42. 
Ricliard,  Duke  of  York.  231-4. 
Richelieu  (resheloo'),  Cardinal,  344-5,375- 

6. 
Roads,  mediaeval,  195. 
Roads,  Roman,  with  picture,  10. 
Robert  of  Normandy ,J7.  82,  84-5,  88,  98. 
Robespierre  (ro'bespeer),  483. 
Robin  Hood.  121. 
Robsart,  Amy,  .309. 
Rochester,  the  Roman  city,  9 ;   wop.  42, 

Dd. 
Rochester  Castle,  picture  of  the  keep  of, 

85. 
Rockingham  Ministry,  the,  536,  541,  543. 
Roger  Hoveden,  120. 
Roger  of  Salisbury.  91,  100. 
Rogers,  J.  T.  Thorold,  quoted,  192-4.  229, 

280. 
Rolf,  or  Rollo,  first  duke  of  Normandj'.  47. 
Roman  bath,  picture  of  remains  of,  9. 
Roman  Britain  (with  map),  7-11 ;  /nap,  8. 
Roman  Catholic  church,   its  beginning  as 

so  named,  249.     See,  also,  Catholics,  Ro- 
man. 
Roman  Empire :  its  fall,  11-12  ;  mediaeval 

revival.     See  Empire. 
Roman  roads  (with  picture),  10. 
Roman  walls  in  Britain,  7-8. 
Romanesque  architecture,  development  of, 

58.  ]:'4. 
Root  and  Branch  bill,  .391. 
Rosebery  Ministry,  the,  621. 
Ro8"8,  Wars  of  the.    See  Wars  of  tlie  Roses. 
Rouen   (roo5n'),  siege  by  Henry  V..  215; 

iiKfj).  1 10,  Dc. 
Round  Heads,  origin  of  the  name,  393. 


Royal  Society  of  England,  formation  of, 
442. 

Rump,  the,  418,  424,  428,  431-3,  439-40.. 

Runic  letters,  32. 

Runnyiuede  (with  present  view  of),  139- 
4() ;  /luip,  110,  Cc. 

Rupert,  Prince,  404-5,  408,  413. 

Ruskin,  John,  628. 

Russell,  Lord  Jolui,  601,  607-8,  614. 

Russell,  William,  Lord,  456,  459-60. 

Russia  :  beginnings  of  the  empire,  164,  206 ; 
the  first  Tsar,  253  ;  mider  Peter  the  Great, 
348,  479;  under  Catherine  II.,  481-2; 
conflict  with  Napoleon,  —  burning  of  Mos- 
cow, 564 ;  Crimean  War,  566,  608-9 ;  war 
with  Turkey  (1877),  568-9;  advance  in 
Asia,  569  :  map,  574,  Ea. 

Rye  House  Plot,  the,  459. 

Ryswick  (riz'wTk),  the  Peace  of,  494  ;  itiap, 
574,  Ca. 

Sac  and  soc,  rights  of,  25. 

Sacheverell  (sashev'erel).  Doctor,  .501. 

St.  Alban's  abbey  church,  view  in,  94. 

St.  Albans,  council  at,  in  1213,  137. 

St.  Albans,  first  battle  of,  232  ;  second  bat- 
tle, 234;  )nap.  42,  Cc. 

St.  Andrews,  burning  at,  311  ;  iiuip,  313. 

St.  Bartholomew's  Day,  massacre  of.  2.53. 

St.  Giles's  (sent  jilz')  Church.  Edinburgh, 
riot  in  (with  picture  of  church),  387. 

St.  Louis.     See  Louis  IX. 

St.  Vincent  Cape,  battle  off,  556 ;  map, 
.574,  Be. 

Saladin  (sal'adin)  and  the  Saladin  Tithe, 
117. 

Salamanca,  battle  of,  579  ;  map,  574,  Bb. 

Salic  Law,  the,  169. 

Salisbury  (sawlz'beri).  Countess  of,  execu- 
tion, 276. 

Salisbury,  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  third  mar- 
quis of,  619-21. 

Salisbury  Plain,  the  Conqueror's  great  as- 
sembly on,  76  ;  map,  42,  Cd. 

Sardinia :  the  Duke  of  Savoy  made  King, 
480  ;  King  Victor  Emmanuel  made  King 
of  Italy,  566  ;  map.  574.  Cb. 

Savonarola  (siivonaro'la),  206. 

Savoy  (savoy'),  the  Duke  becomes  King  of 
Sardinia,  480. 

Saxon  cross,  picture  of.  27 . 

Saxons :  the  German  home  (map),  15-16 ; 
conquests  and  settlements  in  England, 
17-19. 

Schiller,  Friedrich  von,  478. 

Schleswig  (shlgs'wig),  the  old  English  home 
in,  15  ;  map,  16. 

Schools,  elementary.     See  Education. 

Schools,  mediaeval.     See  Learning. 

Science,  modern  :  the  beginnings.  2.54.  .343, 
442  ;  in  the  18th  century,  469,  477  ;  in  the 
19th  century,  628. 

Scone  (skoon),  the  kingdom  of,  45 ;  map, 
313. 

Scotland  :  the  Gaelic  inhabitants,  4 ;  failure 
of  tlie  Romans  to  subdue  the  northern 
tribes,  7-8  ;  Itarassing  of  the  Britons  by 
the  Picts  and  Scots,  —  Irish  origin  of  the 


INDEX. 


669 


Scots,  11-12:  division  of  Britain  at  the 
end  of  the  (Jtli  century,  111;  incursions 
of  the  Northmen,  'M> ;  formation  of  the 
Kingdom  of  the  Scots,  —  acquisition  of 
Lothian,  includine:  Edinburgh,  45;  mar- 
riage of  King  Malcolm  to  tlie  EngUsli 
Princess  Margaret,  G7 ;  his  submission 
and  homage  to  William  the  Conqueror, 
67  ;  Scotti.sli  hostilities  witli  the  English, 
8(3,  O'J-KXt,  110,  IK!:  release  from  fealty 
to  the  English  crown  bought  from  Richard 
I.,  12'J ;  English  overloi'dship  reestab- 
lished by  Edward  I.,  152;  Scottish  War 
of  Independence.  153 :  independence  re- 
covered, lUG  ;  again  surrendered  by  John 
Balliol, —  war  with  Edward  111.,  I('i8; 
captivity  of  King  David,  171  ;  peace,  with 
independence,  restored,  175 ;  war  with 
Henry  IV.,  208;  origin  of  the  Stuart 
Family,  —  captivity  of  James  I.,  209; 
support  given  to  the  pretender,  Perkin 
Warbeck,  against  Henry  VII.,  258  ;  mar- 
riage of  King  James  IV.  to  Margaret, 
daughter  of  Henry  VII.,  2()0  ;  fatal  wars 
of  James  IV.  and  James  V.  witli  Eng- 
land, 264,  278;  birth  of  Mary  Stuart, 
278  ;  English  wooing  of  tlie  infant  Queen 
Mary,  278,  288 ;  betrotlial  and  marriage 
of  Mary  in  France,  288,  310  ;  her  claims 
to  the  English  crowni,  —  and  the  feeling 
of  English  Catholics  towards  her,  310 ; 
her  widowhood  and  return  to  Scotland, 
310.  312 ;  the  Reformation  in  Scotland, 
311-12  ;  Queen  Mary's  marriage  to  Darn- 
ley  and  his  murder,  —  her  marriage  to 
Bothwell,  —  her  deposition  and  escape 
to  England,  —  her  detention  by  Queen 
Elizabeth,  314-17  ;  her  execution.  321- 
2  ;  its  effects,  322-3  ;  accession  of  her 
son  James  to  the  English  throne,  — 
union  of  the  crowns.  334.  349 ;  his  char- 
acter, 349-50  ;  his  efforts  to  complete  the 
union  of  kmgdoms,  352,  355-6  ;  interfer- 
ence of  Charles  I.  with  the  Scottish  Pres- 
byterian church,  and  the  consequent 
"  Bishops'  Wars,"  386-9  ;  Solemn  League 
and  Covenant  \vith  the  English  Parlia- 
ment against  the  king,  407  ;  the  Scottish 
army  at  Mar.ston  Moor,  408-9  ;  Montrose 
and  the  Highlanders,  411-13  :  surrender 
of  King  Charles  to  the  Scots  and  his  de- 
livery to  the  English,  413-15  ;  Charles's 
intrigvies  with  the  Scots,  —  their  invasion 
of  England  and  defeat  at  Preston.  415- 
17  ;  Scottish  agreement  with  Charles  II., 

—  war  with  the  Englisli,  —  defeat  by 
Cromwell  at  Dunbar  and  Worcester,  — 
practical  subjugation,  425-9  ;  representa- 
tion in  the  Barebones  Parliament.  433  ; 
union  with  England  decreed  by  Crom- 
well, 435 ;  joy  at  the  restoration  of  the 
monarchy.  —  persecution  of  Covenanters 
under  Charles  II.,  4C>0-61  ;  the  Argyle 
rebellion.   462;  tlie  Revolution  of    1C.88, 

—  restoration  of  the  Kirk,  488-9 ;  final 
parliamentary  union  witli  England,  5(K) ; 
Jacobite  risings  of  1715  and  1745,  510, 
521. 


Scotland,  liistorical  map  of,  313. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter  (with  portrait),  583. 
Scrooby  congregation,  332,  366 ;  map,  404, 

Cb. 
Sculpture.     See  Art. 
Scutage,  HI. 
Sea-power,    English  :    beginnings,    322-8 : 

revival    under   the   Commonwealth   and 

Protectorate,    429  -  31  ;     decline     inider 

Charles  II..  452  ;  increase  in  the  wars  of 

the   18tli    century,  502,    527-8,    540-41, 

554-5;   in  the  Napoleonic  wars,   573-4, 

576-8,  580. 
Sebastopol    (sgbasto'po),    siege    of,    609  ; 

iiiaj),  574  Fb. 
Sedgemoor.  battle  of,  463  ;  nui/i,  404  Be. 
Seine  (san)  River,  213  ;  nitip,  574  Cb. 
Self-denying  Ordinance,  410-12. 
Seminarists,  320. 
Senlac.  or  Hastings,  battle  of,  62-3  ;  maji. 

42  Dd. 
Sepoys  (se'poys),  origin,  527  ;  mutiny,  610- 

11. 
Septennial  Act,  the,  510. 
Serfs,  slaves,  72-3. 
Seven  Bishops,  trial  of  the,  465-6. 
Seven  Weeks'  War,  the,  567. 
Seven  Years'  War,  the,  481,  522-28,  532. 
Seventeenth  century,   general  survey   of, 

342-8. 
Servia,  5G8;_map,  574  Eb. 
Seymour  (see'mur),  Jane,  273,  276,  278-9. 
Seymour,  Lord  Tliomas,  288,  291. 
Shaftesbury,  Anthony  Ashley  Cooper,  first 

earl  of,  453,  455-9. 
Shakespeare,  William  (with  portrait),  330- 

1,  343. 
Sheep-raising,  increased,  280,  291 . 
Shelley.  Percy  Bysslie,  583. 
Shelburne  Mini.stry,  the,  543. 
Shenstone,  William,  583. 
Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  543. 
Sheriff,  origin  of  olfice  and  title,  74. 
Sherittniuir  (shgrifmur'),    battle   of, 

map,  313. 
Sherwood  Forest,  Robin  Hood  in,  121 

110  Cb. 

Shetland  Islands,  37  ;  mnj),  38. 
Ship  of  war,  English,  time  of  Henry  VIII. 

(picture),  266. 
Ship-money,  385-6,  391. 
Shire,  the,  22. 
Shire-moots.  22,  68,  83,  92. 
Short  Parliameiit^the.  388. 
Shrewsbury  (shrooz'beri),  battle  of-   209  , 

maj),  110  Cb. 
Sidney,  Algernon.  456,  459-60. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip.  325,  330. 
Silchester,  the  Roman  city,  9  ;  ni/ij),  42  Cd. 
Silesia  (sile'shia),  481  ;  map,  574  Da. 
Simnel,  Lambert,  257-8. 
Six  Articles,  the,  275,  290. 
Sixteenth  century,  general  survey  of,  248- 

54. 
Slave  trade,  mediaeval,  27, 114;  suppression 

of  African,  575. 
Slavery  :  in  early  England,  21,  72- 

tion  in  British  colonies,  594. 


516 


map. 


6/0 


INDEX. 


Sluys  (slois),  naval  fight  off,  170 ;  map,  110, 

Dc. 
Smith,  Adam,  "  The  Wealth  of  Nations,"' 

546.  _ 

Sobieski  (sobees'kee),  347. 
Social  conditions  in  early  England,  21-6, 

43-5 ;  mediaeval,  19U-9. 
Social  effects  of  the  Black  Death,  172. 
Solemn  League  and   Covenant,  the,  407, 
450. 

Solferino     (solfere'no),     battle    of,     566 ; 
}nap,  574  Cb. 

Solway  Moss,  battle  of,  278  :  map,  404  Ba. 

Somerset  (sura'erset),  the  British  inhabit- 
ants of,  1!'  ;   map,  front  lining,  Ge. 

Somerset,  Edward  Seymour,  Duke  of.  Lord 
Protector,  28S-'.»2. 

Somme  (somm).  River  214 ;  map,  110,  Dc. 

Song  of  the  Traveller,  :50. 

Sophia  (sofi'a),  Electress  of  Hanover,  495, 
502. 

South  African  Republic,  the,  017,  (with 
map)  02 2-7  ;  map,  625. 

Southampton  (suthhamp'ton),  215  ;  map, 
no,  Cc. 

South  Saxon  kmgdom,  the,  17,  33 ;  map, 
42  Cd. 

South  Sea  Bubble,  the,  511-12. 

Spain :  the  struggle  of  Christians  with 
Moors,  54,  57,  133  ;  early  popular  insti- 
tutions, 133  ;  union  of  Castile  and  Aragon 
and  final  conquest  of  the  Moors,  205 ; 
under  the  emperor,  Charles  V.,  249-50; 
under  Philip  II.,  252:  conflict  with 
Dutch  and  English,  322-5 ;  the  Great 
Armada,  32r>-7 :  in  the  17th  century, 
347  ;  wars  of  the  17th  century,  367,  373- 
0,  385  ;  wars  of  the  18th  century,  478-81, 
496-502,  511,  515-16,  520-22,  532  ;  alli- 
ance with  the  United  States,  540  ;  con- 
flict with  Napoleon,  563-4  ;  loss  of  Span- 
ish colonies,  565 ;  war  with  the  United 
States,  569,  621  ;  maj),  574,  Bb. 

Spanish  marriage  question  (reign  of  James 
I.),  356,  361-2,  364-5,  367. 

Spenser,  Edmund  (with  portrait),  3.30. 

Spice  Islands,  555 ;  map,  back  lining,  Qe. 

Spinning  and  weaving  in  Anglo-Saxon 
times,  45. 

Sports,  mediaeval,  199. 

Squires,  the,  498. 

Stadtholder  of  the  United  Provinces,  347. 

Stage  coacli  in  1804  (picture),  577. 

Stamford  Bridge,  battle  of,  62  ;  map,  42, 
Cc. 

Stamp  Act,  the  (with  picture),  535-6. 

Standard,  battle  of  (with  picture),  99-100  ; 
map,  (Cowton  Moor)  110,  Cb. 

Staple,  the,  154-5,  173. 

Star  Chamber  court,  257  ;  revival  by 
Charles  I.,  :5.s:;-4  ;  abolition  by  the  Long 
Parliament,  :>91. 

States-General  of  France,  1()2. 

States-General  of  France  :  meeting  in  1789, 
483. 

Steamboats,  the  first,  .59(1. 

Steam  engine,  invention  of,  546. 

Steele,  Richard,  498. 


Steelyard,  the,  in  London  (witli  an  early 
I       picture),  154. 
Stephen  (of  Blois),  King  (with  portrait), 

98-101. 
Stephenson  (ste'venson),  George,  590-91. 
j   Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  628. 
i  Stewart  family.     See  Stuart. 

Stirling  Bridge,  battle  of,  153  ;  map,  110, 
[       Ca. 
Stockton,  first  railway,  590  ;  map,  404,  Ca 
Stoke,   cajiture   of  Simnel  at,  258 ;   maj), 
1       404,  Bb. 
Stonehenge  (with  picture),  7  ;  maj),  42,  Cd. 
Stour  (stoor),  River  18;  map,  42,  Dd. 
Stourbridge  (stQr'brTj)  fair,  93  ;  map,  110, 

Db. 
Strafford,  Sir  Thomas  Wentwortli,  Earl  of, 
resistance  to  forced  loan,  376  ;  in  Parlia- 
ment, 377 ;  comisellor  of  the  king,  .383  ; 
lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland,  386  ;  activity 
in   the  Second   Bishops'  War,  389  ;   at- 
tainder and  execution  (with   portrait), 
389-91. 
Strathclyde,  19  ;  map,  42,  Bb. 
Straw,  Jack,  180. 
Strongbow  (Richard  de  Clare),  in  Ireland, 

115. 
Stuart  family,  origin,  209  ;    lineage,  341  ; 

reigns  in  England,  349. 
Stuart   .sovereigns   of    Scotland  and   Eng- 
land, lineage  of  the,  476. 
Stubbs,  Bishop,   on    Hubert   Walter,  125  ; 
on  Magna  Carta,  140-1 ;  on  purveyance, 
197;  on  Henry  IV.,  210. 
Subsidies,  352. 
Succession    to    the   Englisli    crown.      See 

Monarchy. 
Suffolk,  Charles   Brandon,  Duke   of,  293, 

297. 
Suffolk,  origin  of  the  name  of,  18  ;  map, 

42,  Dc. 
Supremacy,  Acts  of,  271,  290,  308. 
Surrey,  Earl  of,  the  jjoet,  278-9. 
Sussex,  origin  of  the  name  of,  18 ;  matt, 

42,  Cd. 
Suzerain,  53. 
Swift,  Jonathan,  498. 
Swinburne,  Algernon  C,  628. 
Swiss,  in  the  14th  and  15  centiu-ies,  164. 

206. 
Sweyn's  (swan)  conquest  of  England,  46. 
Syria,  558  ;  maj),  .574,  Fc. 

Tables,  the  Scottish,  387. 

Talavera  (taliiva'ra),  battle  of,  579  ;  map, 

574,  Be. 
Taylor,  Jeremy,  442. 
Telegraph,  electric,  the  first,  597. 
Ten  articles,  the,  275. 
Tennyson,   Alfred,   Lord    (with  portrait), 

626,  628. 
Test  Act,  the,  4.55,  589. 
Teutonic.     See  Germanic. 
Tewkesbury,   battle    of,   238;    maj),    11 1', 

Cb. 
Texel,   the,    naval    battle   in,  431  ;     map, 

574  Ca. 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  628. 


INDEX. 


671 


map,  4'2,  Dd. 


Tlianes,  24. 

Thai'-e's  liouse.  picture  of,  25. 

Thanet  (thS'net).  Isle  of,  17  : 

Theodore  of  Tarsus,  00. 

Tlieows  (the'oz)  (slaves)  of  the  early  Eng- 
lish. 21. 

Third  Estate,  the,  i;»,  150-51,  1G2,  4S;;. 

Thirteenth  century,  survey  of  general  his- 
tory. 131-4. 

Thirty  Years'  War,  343-4,  3G3^. 

"Thorough,"  the  policy  of  Wentworth  and 
Laud,  :5S5. 

Ticonderoga  (ticondero'ga),  Fort,  52G. 

Tinchebrai  (tinche'brai),  battle  of,  88; 
DKij),  11'),  Cc. 

Tintern  Abbey,  '.•(>. 

Tin  trade,  ancient,  5. 

Tippoo  (tTppoo').  557-8. 

Toleration  Act,  the.  487-8. 

Toleration,  religious,  growth  of,  409-10. 

Tone,  Theobald  Wolfe,  555-(i. 

Tonnage    and    pomidage    question,   373-4, 

:;78-y,  301. 

Torbay,  407  ;  map,  404,  Be. 

Torture,  judicial  use  of,  320. 

Tory  party,  the.  rise  and  origin  of  name, 
458-9 ;  in  the  Revolutiou,  484 :  Jacobite 
reaction,  486-7  ;  passage  of  the  Act  of 
Settlement,  495 ;  party  division  under 
Anne,  498 :  support  from  the  church, 
500-501  ;  powerlessness  and  discontent 
under  the  first  Georges.  510 :  the  new 
party  under  George  III.,  .5;i2  ;  under  the 
younger  Pitt,  544;  Canning's  division  of 
the  party,  587-9  ;  Peel's  division  of  the 
party,  595. 

Tcstig.  Earl,  01-2. 

Toulouse  (toolooz'),  54,  111 ;  map,  574,  Cb. 

Toulouse,  battle  of,  579. 

Touraine  (tooran'),  in  the  dominion  of 
Henry  II..  109;  maj>,  110,  I)d. 

Tower  of  London :  (with  picture  from  the 
earliest  drawing),  G5 ;  murder  of  the 
princes  in  the,  240^1. 

Town  dwellings,  mediaeval,  194. 

To%vn  meeting,  the  old  English  and  the 
American,  22-3. 

Towns,  English  :  the  rise.  74.  92-3.  125  :  in 
the  15th  century.  229-30;  representation 
in  Parliament,  14G,  149-.50.  23(t-31. 

Townishend  (town'zend),  duties,  the,  537-8. 

Township,  the  early  Engli-sh,  22. 

Towton,  battle  of,  234:  maj),  110,  Cb. 

Trade.     See  Commerce. 

Trafalgar  (trafal'gar),  battle  of,  572-4 : 
))ia/),  574,  Be. 

Transformation  of  the  world,  the.  5(;i-2. 

Transvaal  (transval').  Republic  of  the,  G17, 
(with  map)  G22-7  ;  7nap,  G25. 

Travel,  mediieval,  195. 

Tredah  (tre'da).     See  Drogheda. 

Trek,  the  great,  (;22. 

Trencher,  the.  191. 

Trent,  Council  of.  251  ;  map,  574,  Db. 

Trial  by  jury.    See  Jury  trial. 

Trials  bv  combat,  or  battle.  120. 

Triennial  Bill,  the  second,  49G,  510. 

Triple  Alliance,  the,  453-4. 


Trorap,  the  Dutch  admiral,  431. 

Troubadours,  57. 

Troyes  (trvva),  treaty  of,  216;  map,  110, 
Ec. 

Tsar  (tsar),  of  Russia,  the  first,  253. 

Tudor  family,  lineage  of  the,  234,  241,  247. 

Tunis  (tu'uTs),  pirates  of,  438  ;  maj>,  574, 
Cc. 

Tun-moot,  the,  22-3. 

Turks  :  begimiings  of  the  conquests  of,  55  ; 
entrance  into  Europe,  1G4 ;  capture  of 
Constantinople,  203  ;  their  advance 
stopped,  253  ;  last  fight  for  Hungary, 
347  ;  Crimean  War,  5GG,  G08-9  ;  war  with 
Russia  (1877),  5()8-9. 

Turnham  Green,  404  ;  miij),  404,  Cc. 

Two  Sicilies,  the  Bourbon  kingdom  of  the, 
480. 

Tyler,  Wat,  180. 

Tyndale  (tin'del),  John,  279. 

Tyrconnel  (terkonel'),  Richard  Talbot, 
Earl  of,  489. 

Uitlanders  of  the  Transvaal,  625-7. 

Ulm,  battle  at.  .574  ;  map,  574,  Cb. 

Ulster,  massacre  in,  392. 

Ulster,  the  kingdom  of,  114-15;  map,  110, 
Bb. 

Ulster,  the  Plantation  of,  358-9. 

Undertakers,  the,  361. 

Unfree,  the,  21. 

Uniformity,  Acts  of,  290,  308,  450. 

Union  Jack,  the,  picture,  558. 

Union  of  the  early  English  churches,  33. 

Union  of  English  kingdoms  under  Egbert, 
33. 

Union  of  England  and  Scotland  :  regal, 
349 ;  parliamentary.  500. 

United  Irishmen,  Society  of,  .55,5-6. 

United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
laud,  formation  of.  558. 

United  States  of  America  :  gifts  of  England 
to,  V ;  in  the  colonial  period,  328-9,  348, 
.357-8,  .384-5,  451-2,  470.  523;  revolt  and 
independence,  .534-41 ,  543 ;  suffering  from 
British  orders  in  council  and  Napoleon's 
decrees.  .570-7  :  war  with  England.  578, 
580-81  :  boundary  treaties  with  England, 
601  ;  ci\il  war,  .5GG,  (n2-14  ;  French  in- 
trusion in  Mexico,  .567  :  settlement  of 
"  Alabama  Claims,"  613-14,  616  ;  fishery 
and  seal  disputes,  620 ;  Venezuela  ques- 
tion, —  Spanish- American  war,  ( 52 1-2. 

United  Provinces.     See  Netherlands. 

Universities.     See  Learning. 

Utrecht  (u'trekt),  treaty  of,  479,  501-2; 
map,  574,  Ca. 

Vane,  Sir  Henry  (with  portrait),  432-3. 
Vassals,  53. 

Vaudois  (vodwa'),  persecution  of  the,  438. 
Vega  Carpio,  Lope  Felix  de,  343. 
Venezuela  (venezwe'la),  dispute,  the,  621. 
Venice  (ven'T(;e),  131  ;  maj>.  574,  Db. 
Vercelli  (vgrchePle),  Book,  the,  32. 
Vestry  meetings,  24. 
Vexin  (fat'sTn),  77. 
Victoria  Cross,  picture,  609. 


6^2 


INDEX. 


Victoria,  Queen  :  accession,  596  ;  marriage 
to  Prince  Albert,  r>'.»S  ;  death  of  Prince 
Albert,  til'J  ;  proclaimed  Empress  of 
India,  S17  ;  Diamond  Jubilee,  622  ;  por- 
trait, 623. 

Vienna,  the  Congress  of,  564 ;  max),  574, 
Db. 

Vikings,  the  (with  map),  37-8. 

Vikings'  iron  swords,  picture  of,  3!t. 

Villeins  (vil'lTnz).  villeinage,  72-4,  172, 
179-81,  255. 

Villiers  (vTl'yerz).  Charles,  599. 

Vincennes  (vinsenz'),  death  of  Henry  Vat, 
216;  map,  110.  Dc. 

Vinegar  Hill,  battle  of,  557  ;  map,  :358,  Cb. 

Vittoria  (vetto'reti),  battle  of,  579  ;  map, 
574,  Bb. 

Voltaire,  477. 

Wace's  poem,  "  The  Brut,"  102. 

Wagram  (wag'ram),  battle  of.  580 ;  map, 
574,  Db. 

Wakeiield,  battle  of,  234 ;  map,  110,  Cb. 

Waldenses  (wolden'sez).     See  Vaudois. 

Waldhere.  30. 

Wales  :  origin  of  the  Welsh  and  their  name, 
4,  19-21  :  survival  of  Christianity  in,  26; 
wars  with  William  Rufus.  86  :  subjuga- 
tion by  Edward  I..  152;  the  fir.st  English 
Prince  of  Wales.  152  ;  wars  with  Henry 
IV.,  208-9;  incorporation  into  the  Eng- 
lish kingdom,  277  ;  map,  404,  Bb. 

Wallace,  William  (with  picture  of  his 
statue).  153  . 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  his  character  and  ca- 
reer (with  portrait),  511-16. 

Walsingham.  Sir  Francis,  .^21-2. 

Walter,  Hubert,  archbishop,  his  work, 
124-5  ;  his  death,  137. 

Walter  Map.  12(». 

Wandiwash  (wau'dTwash),  battle  of,  527  ; 
map,  526,  Be. 

Wapentake  (wop'Sntakes),  the,  22. 

Warbeck.  Perkin.  258-9. 

War  of  the  Austrian  Succession,  480-81, 
520-22. 

War  of  Jenkins's  Ear,  480.  515-16. 

War  of  the  Poli.sh  Succession,  480. 

War  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  478-9,  496, 
499-502. 

Wars  of  the  Roses,  232-43 :  state  of  Eng- 
land before  and  after,  228-31,  242-3; 
map  of  England  during,  2.33. 

Warwick  (war'wTk),  the  Earl  of  (the 
king  maker),  his  lineage.  222 ;  his  part 
in  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  (with  pictvire), 
234-8. 

Washington,  George ;  in  the  French  and 
Indian  war,  .523  . 

Waterloo  (Waterloo'),  battle  of,  564,  580 ; 
■map,  574,  Ca. 

Watling  Street,  10  ;  map,  8. 

Watt,  James,  and  the  steam  engine,  .54(). 

Wealh  (weel)  (Welsli),  the  wmw,  20. 

Weaving.     See  Manufacture.s. 

Wedniore,  peace  of,  41 . 

Wellington,  tlie  Duke  of,  563-4,  (with  por- 
trait) 579-80,  587-91. 


Wellington-Peel  Ministries,  589-90,  596. 

Wentworth,  Sir  Thomas.  See  Strafford, 
Earl  of. 

Wergild,  2(5. 

Wesley,  John  and  Charles,  with  portrait  of 
John  Wesley,  516. 

Wessex,  origin  and  meaning  of  the  name, 
18  ;   map,  42,  Bd. 

West  Saxon  kingdom,  the,  17,  29,  33 ; 
map  (Wessex),  42  Bd. 

West  Saxon  kings,  lineage  of,  51. 

Westmin.ster  (west'minster)  Abbey,  the 
first  building  of,  48  ;  as  represented  on 
the  Bayeux  Tapestry,  47. 

Westminster  Assembly,  the,  407. 

Westminster  Hall  :  built  by  William  II. 
(with  picture),  86-7 ;  trial  of  King 
Charles,  418  ;  trial  of  Warren  Hastings, 
543. 

Westminster,  Provisions  of,  145. 

Westphalia,  peace  of,  344. 

Wexford,  Cromwell's  storming  and  mas- 
sacre at,  425  ;  map,  358,  Cb. 

Whig  party,  the,  rise  and  origin  of  name, 
458-9 :  in  the  Revolution,  484 ;  party 
division  under  Anne,  498 ;  strength  of 
the  party  under  George  I.,  509-10  ;  op- 
position to  King  George's  American 
war,  r>40  ;  merged  in  the  Liberal  party, 
595-6. 

White  Friars,  198. 

White  monks,  95. 

Wiiite  Sliip,  the  sinking  of  the,  97. 

Whitefield,  George,  516. 

Whitehall,  execution  of  King  Charles  at, 
419. 

Wiclif,  John,  his  religious  and  social 
influence  (with  portrait),  177-81  ;  his 
Bible,  181,  185  ;  his  teaching  in  Bohe- 
mia, 206. 

Widsith,  the  Song  of  the  Traveller,  30. 

Wight,  Isle  of  19  ;  escape  of  Charles  I.  to, 
417  ;  map,  42,  Cd. 

Wilkes,  John,  5.33-4,  537-S. 

William  I.  (the  Conqueror),  his  claim  to 
the  English  crown,  48,  59-60 ;  his  con- 
quest of  England,  60-67 :  his  treatment 
of  the  English,  64-6,  75-6  ;  his  feudal 
system,  (57-8 ;  his  Domesday  Survey, 
72-4  ;  his  death,  77. 

William  II.  (called  Rufus),  his  character 
and  reign,  S2-7. 

William  III.  (of  Orange):  as stadtholder  of 
Holland,  —  resistance  to  Louis  XIV., 
346-7,  478-9,  492-5  ;  maiTiage  to  Princess 
Mary,  458  ;  invitation  to  England,  4(36-7  ; 
receives  the  English  crowai,  484-5 ;  his 
reign  (with  portrait),  486-96. 

William  IV.,  590-96. 

William  of  Malme.sbury,  94. 

William  the  Silent,  Prince  of  Orange,  252, 
.321. 

Williams,  Roger,  409. 

Winceby,  light  at,  406  ;  map,  404,  Cb. 

Winchester,  the  Roman  city,  9  ;  map,  42, 
Cd. 

Wine-drinking,  mediieval,  195. 

Witenagemot    (wit'enagemot),    the,    26; 


INDEX. 


673 


Norman  change  in  character,  ~~> ;  its 
change  of  name  to  Great  Council,  '.•'_*. 

Witt,  John  de,  347. 

Woad,  G. 

Wolfe,  Gen.  James,  with  portrait,  ~t'H\. 

Wolsey  (wool'zT),  Cardinal  Thomas  (with 
portrait),  "iO-i-U. 

Woman  suffrage,  021. 

Wool,  woolen  manufactures.  See  Manu- 
factures. 

Worcester  (wd&s'ter),  battle  of,  427-8  ; 
map,  -KI4,  Bb. 

Wordsworth,  William  (with  portrait), 
582-3. 


World's  Fair,  the,  1851,  ('.08. 
Wurtemburg,  5(38  ;  iiuiji,  574,  Cb. 
Wyatt's  (wy'att)  rebellion,  297. 

York,  the  House  of,  its  derivation  from 
Edward  III.,  201,  221,  227;  its  conflict 
with  the  House  of  Lancaster,  223,  231-8. 

York,  massacre  of  Jews  at,  127  ;  map,  110, 
Cb. 

York,  the  Roman  city,  9  ;  map,  42,  Co. 

Young,  Arthur,  546. 

Young  Ireland  party,  601,  007. 

Zwingli,  Ulrich,  249. 


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